LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

GIFT  OF" 

Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALSWORTH. 

Received  October,  18Q4. 
^Accessions  No.J^/CS^  -      Class  No. 


THE 


SILENT    HOUSE 


BY 


E.    P.    TENNEY. 


^g  ran       ST 


+ 


BOSTON: 
CONGKEGATIONAL   PUBLISHING   SOCIETY, 

BEACON     STREET. 


<SVtf»S 


$10  ff 

COPYKIGHT,  1876,  E.  P.  Tenney. 


BOSTON: 

STEREOTYPED  BY  C.  J.  PETERS  &  SON, 

78  FEDERAL  STREET. 


nmtoDUCTioK 


Drelincourt's  "  Meditations  on  Death"  had  as 
remarkable  a  run,  in  its  day,  as  any  well  written 
modern  novel.  First  published  in  France  in  1651, 
there  were  fifteen  editions  in  forty-one  years.  It 
was  published  in  nearly  every  country  in  Europe. 
There  were  more  than  twenty  editions  in  England 
and  Scotland  in  little  more  than  a  hundred  yeava. 
Queen  Mary,  consort  to  William  III.,  read  it  over 
seven  times.  De  Foe  was  so  much  pleased  with  it, 
that  he  wrote  a  ghost-story  for  an  introduction  to 
one  edition,  the  better  to  sell  it,  representing  Mrs. 
Veal  as  coming  from  another  world  to  recommend 
this  book  ;  and  the  indorsement  proved  so  popular, 
that  it  has  been  printed  in  every  edition  since. 
There  have  been,  at  least,  three  American  editions. 
Drelincourt's  fulness  of  learning,  and  quaintness 
of  illustration,  might  warrant   another   edition :  it 

3 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

would,  without  doubt,  attract  many  readers,  espe- 
cially if  it  were  abridged,  and  edited  with  a  view 
to  meeting  modern  wants.  It  is  hoped  that  the 
quotations  acknowledged  in  the  text,  or  referred  to 
in  the  index,  will  whet  the  appetite  of  the  reader  to 
look  up  the  original.  The  literature  of  the  subject 
comprises  other  treatises,  which  were  once  widety 
read ;  but  there  are  so  few  readers  of  old  books  in 
our  large  libraries,  that  these  authors  now  stand 
upon  the  shelves,  year  after  year,  without  a  reader. 

In  preparing  this  little  book,  the  writer  has  no 
ambition  to  take  the  place  of  the  eminent  French 
pastor ;  but  he  is  convinced  that  the  interest  in  the 
topic  is  as  permanent  as  the  fact  of  our  mortality. 
He  has  himself  been  strangely  drawn  toward  it ; 
and  a  melancholy  pleasure  attaches  to  these  studies 
upon  "The  Silent  House.' '  The  contemplation  of 
the  phases  of  the  subject  brought  to  view  in  these 
pages  has  been  a  pleasing  diversion  in  the  season 
of  summer  rest. 

The  text  has  not  been  largely  cumbered  with  foot- 
notes. The  citation  of  authorities  is  desirable  in 
scientific  treatises,  but  not  in  hortatory  books.  It 
would  be  easy  to  fill  man}^  pages  b}^  a  copious  index 
and  full  notes  ;  but  the  character  of  this  work  does 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

not  seem  to  call  for  substantiating  every  statement 
of  fact,  or  verifying  ever}"  quotation.  I  have,  there- 
fore, fallen  back  upon  the  dictum  of  my  right-hand 
literary  adviser,  —  "If  any  are  anxious  to  know 
about  a  point,  they  will  hunt  it  up  ;  and,  if  they  are 
not  anxious  to  know,  they  will  not  thank  you  for 
telling  them  where  to  find  it."  The  fidelity  of  an 
author  can  be  easily  tested.  A  few  notes  and  a 
brief  index  are  added  to  make  clear  some  points, 
and  to  make  easy  reference  to  the  leading  topics. 
Scripture  texts,  commonly  known  to  be  such,  are 
used  without  quotation  marks.  Persons  not  familiar 
with  the  Bible,  who  find  any  sentence  particularly 
apt,  may  safely  look  for  it  in  the  Old  or  the  New 
Testament. 

The  writer  is  not  without  hope  that  these  pages 
may  be  of  service  as  a  hand-book  to  those  who  are 
constantly  called  to  the  bedside  of  the  dj'ing,  to 
minister  at  the  burial  of  the  dead,  or  to  remind  the 
living  of  those  events  which  will  so  soon  come  to 
ever}*  man.  And,  if  this  little  volume  is  placed  in 
the  hands  of  any  one  who  is  walking  toward  home 
in  the  dark,  it  is  believed  that  this  may  be  a  guide- 
book leading  to  the  light. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

I.  Building  in  the  Dust    ....      9 
II.  Near  Home 42 

III.  The  Dark  Days      .     *    .         .         .         .65 

IV.  Searching  for  the  Light   .    •    .91 
V.  The  Light 113 


^^  09  THE  ^ 


THE   SILENT  HOUSE. 


L 

BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST. 

One  of  the  greatest  of  all  modern  poets 
represents  the  planets  as  standing  still  in 
terror,  and  turning  to  ashen  gray  at  the  sound 
of  the  tolling  hoofs  of  the  death-steed ;  the 
heavens  terrified  as  the  earth  by  the  woe  which 
followed  sin.  Other  poets  have  pictured  to  us 
young  Cain,  watching  for  the  appearing  of 
Death,  in  the  gloomy  shadows  at  nightfall  by 
Eden.  For  God  had  said  to  the  father  of  man- 
kind, "  In  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof, 
thou  shalt  surely  die."  Upon  that  day  moral 
death  entered  the  world.  The  fact  that  Adam 
lived  between  nine  and  ten   centuries   shows 


10  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

that  the  emphasis  of   the  penalty  was  moral, 
not  physical. 

Physical  death  had  long  reigned  over  the 
brute  creation.  It  was,  indeed,  believed  in 
former  ages,  that  the  death  of  every  living 
creature  was  caused  by  tasting  the  forbidden 
fruit  at  the  hand  of  our  first  mother ;  all  par- 
taking in  man's  sin  save  one  undying  bird, 
which  flew  away  from  the  temptation,  and 
lives  to  this  day  in  the  deserts.  It  is,  perhaps, 
commonly  supposed,  that,  in  like  manner,  the 
physical  death  of  the  human  race  is  owing  to 
Adam's  sin.  It  is,  however,  likely,  that  men, 
at  some  period  of  advancement,  would  have 
been  removed  from  this  scene  of  life,  even  if 
Adam  had  kept  his  first  estate.  The  reign  of 
death  over  the  lower  animals  before  the  appear- 
ance of  man  makes  it  probable  that  this  world 
was  not  designed  for  the  final  abode  of  our 
race.  It  is  unquestionably  true,  that  the  mode 
of  the  removal  of  man  from  this  life  might 
have  been  different,  as  in  the  case  of  Enoch,  if 
sin  had  not  entered.  It  is  not  safe  to  say  that 
the  removal  of  man  from  this  planet  is  certainly 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  \\ 

the  result  of  sin ;  but  it  is  true,  that  the  amaz- 
ing brevity  of  life,  compared  with  that  of  the 
fathers  of  the  race,  and  the  mastery  of  disease, 
and  the  mode  of  our  passing  out  of  life,  are  so 
intimately  connected  with  sin  as  to  make  it 
suitable  to  speak  of  our  own  physical  death  as 
coming  into  the  world  with  the  fall  of  our  first 
father.  Physical  as  well  as  spiritual  death 
began  to  take  upon  itself  the  shape  in  which 
we  see  it,  upon  the  day  when  Adam  broke  away 
from  God.  So  death  entered  by  sin ;  the  decay 
of  the  body  the  symbol  of  the  soul's  disaster. 
The  old  curse  which  descended  on  Eden  still 
overshadows  us.  Sin  is  all  the  time  weaving 
shrouds ;  and  every  grave  to-day  is  dug  by  the 
divine  justice.  In  the  Mosaic  law,  it  is  pro- 
vided that  when  "leprosy,  a  certain  kind  of 
mould,  is  found  in  the  walls  of  a  house,  the 
whole  building  must  be  broken  down :  so,  when 
sin  has  smitten  the  body,  the  body  must  be 
broken  down  and  removed.  Dust  thou  art, 
and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return.  We  dwell 
in  houses  of  clay,  whose  foundation  is  in  the 
dust,  which  are  crushed  before  the  moth.    "  The 


12  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

body,"  says  an  old  writer,  "  is  more  astonishing 
in  onr  life  than  in  our  death;  as  it  is  more 
strange  to  see  dust  walking  up  and  down  in  the 
dust  than  lying  down  in  it." 

Death  is  universal.  Death  has  passed  on 
all,  for  that  all  have  sinned.  It  is  in  a  sinning 
world  that  we  find  it  written,  "  One  generation 
passeth  away,  and  another  generation  cometh." 
There  is  a  perpetual  pilgrimage  to  the  lands 
of  death.  Crusades  of  men,  women,  and  little 
ones,  are  marching  thither.  Little  do  we  think 
how  constant  is  the  procession  to  the  tomb. 
Every  day  the  sun  gazes  upon  more  than  eighty 
thousand  funerals.  The  bier  never  stands  still 
for  a  moment.  The  tolling  of  the  bell,  and  the 
fall  of  clods  upon  the  coffin,  are  sounds  familiar  in 
every  village.  We  merely  ask,  "  Whose  funeral 
is  it?" 

"  Whose  feet  to-day  attain  the  goal, 
And  put  their  sandals  by, 
And,  having  filled  their  Lord's  behest, 
Are  laid  to  moulder  in  the  rest 
Of  many  a  century  ?  "  x 

1  These  lines  were  the  last  rhymes  written  by  the  author 
alluded  to  upon  p.  120. 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  13 

When  we  look  over  the  lands  which  in  every 
town  are  devoted  to  death,  it  is  no  wonder  if 
such  gloomy  wastes  alarm  men.  We  dwell 
among  the  tombs.  The  sexton  is  undermining 
us  all.  The  ruins  of  the  race  cover  great  tracts 
of  country,  like  the  ruins  of  vast  cities.  In 
peace  and  in  war,  death  is  busy  strewing  the 
continents  with  the  dead.  In  our  war  for  the 
Union,  the  very  birds  learned  funeral-airs,  and 
battle-fields  were  turned  into  cemeteries.  But 
during  those  four  years,  in  which  it  was  esti- 
mated that  more  than  three-quarters  of  a  mil- 
lion soldiers  died  by  disease  or  in  battle,  the 
ordinary  work  of  death  went  on  in  the  world 
as  usual,  and  an  army  of  more  than  three  times 
the  entire  population  of  the  United  States  was 
so  quietly  laid  away  under  ground,  that  no  one 
thought  to  speak  of  it.  More  are  beneath  the 
ground  than  above  it. 

"All  that  tread 
The  globe  are  but  a  handful  to  the  tribes 
That  slumber  in  its  bosom." 

The   thirteen  hundred  millions  now  upon   the 


14  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

earth,  in  a  few  years  will  be  all  gone.  For 
more  than  fifty  centuries,  some  have  been  dying 
each  moment ;  while  now  and  then  a  great 
calamity  has  swept  away  many  at  once. 

11  The  dead  are  everywhere: 
The  mountain  side,  the  plain,  the  wood  profound, 
All  the  wide  earth,  the  fertile  and  the  fair, 

Is  one  vast  burial-ground." 

"  The  world,"  says  Carlyle,  "  is  built  upon 
the  mere  dust  of  heroes,  once  earnest  wrestling, 
death-defying,  prodigal  of  their  blood ;  who 
now  sleep  well,  forgotten  by  all  their  heirs." 
The  grim  humor  of  Holmes  declares  that,  — 

"  One  half  our  soil  has  walked  the  rest, 
In  poets,  heroes,  martyrs,  sages." 

In  England  the  old  graveyards  increase  in 
height  from  century  to  century,  the  entire  space 
piled  up  by  the  precious  dust  of  those  who  there 
await  the  resurrection ;  although,  alas  !  many 
graves  are  not  respected.  The  bones  of  the 
dead,  and  their  dust,  have  been  often  rudely 
cast  out,  raised  before  their  time  with  shame 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  15 

and  contempt,  and  mingled  with  the  common 
clods  of  the  world.  When  Sir  Christopher 
Wren  laid  the  foundation  of  St.  Paul's,  he 
dug  down  through  cemeteries  piled  one  upon 
another,  —  English  graves  and  Norman,  Danish, 
Saxon,  Roman,  British.  In  some  parts  of 
Europe,  the  wreck  of  animal  life  of  former 
periods  of  the  world's  history  is  spoken  of  by- 
scientific  men  as  forming  almost  the  entire  soil 
in  considerable  regions  of  country.  And  one 
has  gone  so  far  as  to  say  that  "  no  small  part 
of  the  present  surface  of  the  earth  is  derived 
from  the  remains  of  animals  that  constituted 
the  population  of  ancient  seas." x  For  example, 
more  than  ten  thousand  minute  chambered 
shells  have  been  found  in  an  ounce  and  a  half 
of  stone  taken  from  the  hills  of  Tuscany.  And 
extensive  areas  of  land  are  made  up  in  this 
way  in  various  parts  of  the  globe.  Add  to 
these  cemeteries  of  shell-fish  and  land  animals 
some  thousands  of  generations  of  the  human 
race,  who  have  returned  dust  to  dust,  and  the 
whole  world  itself  is  one  vast  tomb. 

1  Buckland:  Bridge  water  Treatise,  vol.  i.  pp.  112, 113,  110, 
117. 


16  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

"The  wheels  of  Nature,"  said  an  English 
preacher,  "  are  not  made  to  roll  backward : 
evey  thing  presses  on  towards  eternity.  From 
the  birth  of  time,  an  impetuous  current  has  set 
in,  which  bears  all  the  sons  of  men  towards  that 
interminable  ocean."  "  In  reading  the  fifth 
chapter  of  Genesis,"  says  a  very  suggestive 
commentator,  "  we  seem  to  have  entered  the 
antediluvian  cemetery,  and  to  be  slowly  de- 
ciphering epitaphs  of  more  than  four  thousand 
years'  standing.  Passing  from  one  gray  tomb- 
stone to  another,  we  notice  that  the  inscriptions 
close  thus,  '  He  died.'  "  " 4  And  he  died,'  '  and 
he  died,'  at  the  end  of  every  name,  rings  out  like 
a  tolling  bell."  The  generations  of  men  run 
on,  regardless  of  the  dead,  as  the  floods  ran  over 
the  resting-place  of  Alaric.  When  the  fierce 
warrior  died,  a  river  was  turned  out  of  its  bed, 
that  the  great  barbarian  might  lie  down  in  its 
place ;  then,  over  the  grave  the  waters  were 
turned  again,  and  the  stream  swept  along,  as  if 
no  king  was  buried  there.  So  the  stream  of 
the  world  rolls  on,  and  the  current  of  life  hurries 
over  the  graves  of  the  buried  great.     One  day 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  17 

men  pause  for  the  funeral ;  but  the  next  day 
all  the  tide  of  life  flows  again.  Joseph  reigned 
in  power;  but  he  "died,"  —  the  individual, — 
"  and  all  his  brethren," — the  family, —  "  and  all 
that  generation," — the  world  swept  clean, — and 
straightway  there  rose  a  new  king,  who  knew 
not  Joseph.  "  So  Tibni  died,  and  Omri  reigned." 
King  after  king  mounts  the  throne,  then  lies 
down  in  the  dust  to  make  room  for  his  suc- 
cessor. Will  men  mourn  over  our  graves  to- 
morrow? Others  yet  will  mourn  over  their 
graves  the  day  after.  Therefore  move  away, 
and  make  room  for  others.  "  Why,"  asks  an 
old  philosopher,  "do  you  crowd  the  world?" 
So  the  generations  of  men  perish,  like  decaying 
nature.  And  the  world  does  not  miss  a  single 
man,  more  than  some  forest  goes  into  mourning 
for  one  fallen  leaf. 

"  Majestic  heaven 
Shines  not  the  less  for  that  one  vanished  star." 

Amid   all   the    throngs   of  the   dying,  we  are 
to    fall    unnoticed ;    but    "  the    day    we    die, 
though  of  no  importance  to   the  world,  is   to 
2 


18  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

ourselves  of  more  importance  than  is  all  the 
world."  To  us  it  is  the  day  for  which  all  days 
are  made,  and  for  which,  all  our  days,  we  are 
preparing. 

If,  for  the  sake  of  emphasis,  it  is  suitable  to 
make  such  a  distinction,  I  will  say  that  death 
is  not  only  universal,  but  also  impartial, 
showing  no  favor  to  any  in  its  time  of  coming, 
or  mode  of  attack. 

"  Within  the  populous  street, 
In  solitary  homes,  in  places  high, 
In  pleasure's  domes,  where  pomp  and  luxury  meet, 

Men  bow  themselves  to  die. 

The  old  man  at  his  door, 
The  unweaned  child  murmuring  in  wordless  song, 
The  bondman  and  the  free,  the  rich,  the  poor, 

All,  all,  to  death  belong. 

The  sunlight  gilds  the  walls 
Of  kingly  sepulchres  inwrought  with  brass  ; 
And  the  long  shadow  of  the  cypress  falls 

Athwart  the  common  grass." 

Men  might  well  run  through  the  earth,  as  the 
messengers  at  the  time  of  the  great  plague  in 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  19 

London,  crying  through  every  street,  "  Bring  out 
your  dead  !  Bring  out  your  dead  !  "  l  Does 
Death  fail  to  heed  the  tears  of  the  mourner? 
does  he  bid  them  flow  afresh?  So,  also,  he 
heeds  no  gayety ;  but  his  arrows  crash  into  the 
house  of  our  pleasures.  It  is  written,  "  Both 
the  great  and  the  small  shall  die  in  this  land." 
All  graves  are  not  of  one  length.  As  the 
death-angel  is  often  watching  by  the  cradle- 
side,  eager  to  catch  away  life  ere  it  is  scarce 

1  The  reader  of  Whittier  will  recall  a  fine  allusion  to 
this  night-cry,  though  used  hy  the  poet  with  a  local  applica- 
tion.   A  single  word  is  changed.    Works,  p.  271,  vol.  i. 

M '  Bring  out  your  dead ! '    The  midnight  street 
Heard  and  gave  hack  the  hoarse,  low  call : 
Harsh  fell  the  tread  of  hasty  feet; 
Glanced  through  the  dark  the  coarse  white  sheet, 
Her  coffin  and  her  pall. 
*  What,  only  one ! '  the  brutal  cartman  said, 
As  with  an  oath  he  spurned  away  the  dead. 

How  sunk  the  inmost  hearts  of  all 

As  rolled  the  dead-cart  slowly  by, 

With  creaking  wheel  and  harsh  hoof -fall ! 

The  dying  turned  him  to  the  wall, 

To  hear  it,  and  to  die. 

Onward  it  rolled ;  while  oft  its  driver  staid, 

And  hoarsely  clamored, '  Ho !  bring  out  your  dead.'  " 


20  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

begun,  so,  also,  the  old  preacher  tells  us,  death 
"  stops  its  ears  to  the  requests  of  trembling  old 
age,  and  casts  to  the  ground  the  gray  heads  as 
so  many  withered  oaks."  Death  comes  to 
middle  life,  takes  the  violent  man  from  his 
crimes,  and  the  just  man  from  his  knees. 
Death  snatches  the  rich  from  his  goods,  the 
scholar  from  his  books,  the  man  of  pleasure 
from  his  fashionable  pursuits,  the  self-righteous 
from  his  good  deeds :  the  worst  and  the  best 
are  borne  away  together.  All  ambitions  are 
laid  low : 

"  High  heart,  high  thought,  high  fame,  as  flat 
As  a  gravestone." 

Death  is  hewing  down  stalwart  men  engaged 
in  great  enterprises,  holy  and  unholy ;  and  so, 
also,  the  humble  in  the  earth  are  falling,  day 
after  day,  by  the  hand  of  the  great  execu- 
tioner. Death  holds  his  silent,  solemn  court  in 
palace  and  hut.  Tents  and  towns  are  alike  to 
him.  The  Spanish  proverb  declares,  that,  "  He 
tramples  just  the  same  upon  the  high  towers 
of  kings  and  the  low  cottages  of  the  poor." 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  21 

"  It  hath,"  again  saith  the  preacher,  "  no  more 
respect  for  the  crowns  of  kings,  the  pope's 
mitre,  and  the  cardinal's  cap,  than  for  the 
shepherd's  crook,  or  the  slave's  chains." 

Now  and  then  a  man  falls  who  makes  half 
the  earth  quake :  the  globe  is  rilled  with  terror ; 
the  feeble  tremble  as  they  see  the  most  mighty 
yielding  to  death.  Death  is  this  world's  king. 
We  might  repeat  to  one  another  the  words 
of  the  monarch  in  the  old  play  :  — 

"  For  Heaven's  sake,  let  us  sit  upon  the  ground, 
And  tell  sad  stories  of  the  death  of  kings; 

.  .  .  For  within  the  hollow  crown 

That  rounds  the  mortal  temples  of  a 

Keeps  death  his  court;  and  there  the 

Scoffing  his  state,  and  grinning  at  his 

Allowing  him  a  breath,  a  little  scene 

To  monarchize,     .     .     . 

.  .  .  and,  humor'd  thus, 

Comes  at  the  last,  and  with  a  little  pin 

Bores  through  his  castle  wall,  and — farewell,  king!  " 

Philip  of  Macedon  had  a  page  repeat  in  his 
chamber,  morning  by  morning,  "  Remember,  O 
king !  that  thou  art  mortal."     "  He  that  is  to- 


22  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

day  a  king  to-morrow  shall  die."  !  "  Memento 
mori "  was  the  motto  upon  the  seal  of  an  em- 
peror in  early  ages.  We  read,  that,  in  the 
Flowery  Kingdom,  a  stone-cutter  appears  at  the 
coronation  of  the  emperor,  with  specimens  of 
costly  marble,  saying, "  Choose,  O  Celestial  Em- 
peror, the  stone  beneath  which  thy  bones  shall 
one  day  rest."  When  the  body  of  Constantine 
the  Seventh,  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  was  borne 
forth  to  burial,  a  herald  went  before  the  funeral- 
train,  crying,  "  Arise,  O  king  of  the  world,  and 
obey  the  summons  of  the  King  of  kings."  When 
Alexander  the  Great  died,  he  ordered  that  his 
dead  hands  should  be  borne  outside  the  bier, 
that  all  beholders  might  see  them  empty.  The 
dying  Saladin,  if  we  are  to  believe  old  story, 
directed  a  messenger  to  take  his  shroud,  fasten 
it  to  his  flagstaff  which  had  borne  down  so 
many  battles,  and  carry  it  through  the  streets, 
crying,  "  This  is  all  that  is  left  of  all  his  great- 
ness   to   the   mighty   Saladin  ! " 2      Cyrus,  em- 

1  Ecclus.  x.  10. 

2  Thomas  Fuller  (p.  140,  History  of  the  Holy  War.  Lon- 
don, 1840)  hased  upon  Sabell.  Enn.  9,  lib.  v.  p.  378.  When 
Gibbon  (p.  267,  vol.  vii. :  Boston,  1855)  said  that  the  Orientals 
knew  nothing  of  this  story,  he  probably  had  Fuller  in  mind. 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  23 

peror  of  Persia,  chose  this  epitaph,  "  O  man ! 
whatsoever  thou  art,  and  whencesoever  thou 
comest,  I  know  that  thou  wilt  come  to  the  same 
condition  in  which  I  now  am.  I  am  Cyrus,  who 
brought  the  empire  to  the  Persians :  do  not 
envy  me,  I  beseech  thee,  this  little  piece  of 
ground  which  covereth  my  body  !  "  The  dust 
of  prince  is  very  like  the  dust  of  beggar ;  and 
the  whirlwind  sports  with  both.  A  Persian 
poet  said  that  he  saw  a  potter  making  pitchers 
out  of  clay  which  had  been  used  once  before  in 
making  the  heads  of  kings  and  the  feet  of  beg- 
gars.1   We  may  all  sing  the  old  Spanish  song :  — 

M  Our  lives  are  rivers,  gliding  free 
To  that  unfathomed,  boundless  sea, 

The  silent  grave: 
Thither  all  empty  pomp  and  boast 
Roll,  to  be  swallowed  up  and  lost 

In  one  dark  wave. 

Thither  the  mighty  torrents  stray; 
Thither  the  brook  pursues  its  way, 

And  tinkling  rill: 
There  all  are  equal.     Side  by  side 
The  poor  man  and  the  son  of  pride 
Lie  calm  and  still." 

1  Kkeyam ;  eleventh  century. 


24  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

The  death-sentence  has  passed  on  all  men; 
and  there  is  no  partiality,  and  there  is  no 
escape:  death  is  inevitable.  All  flesh  shall 
perish  together,  and  man  shall  turn  again  unto 
dust.  All  that  go  down  to  the  dust  shall  bow 
before  him ;  and  none  can  keep  alive  his  own 
soul.  Earth's  millions  are  to  enter  the  grave. 
It  is  appointed  unto  man  once  to  die.  There  is 
a  house  appointed  for  all  the  living.  It  is  re- 
served for  them.  All  must  call  on  the  court  of 
Death,  and  nod  at  his  gate.  We  must  needs 
die.  What  man  is  he  that  livejbh,  and  shall  not 
see  death  ?  There  is  no  man  that  hath  power 
over  the  spirit  to  retain  the  spirit;  neither 
hath  he  power  in  the  day  of  death.  "  After 
such  a  number  of  hours,"  saith  one,  "it  will 
unavoidably  be  night,  and  there  is  no  stopping 
the  setting  sun."  Sang  Confucius,  a  few  days 
before  his  death,  — 

44  The  great  mountain  must  crumble, 
The  strong  beam  must  break, 
And  the  wise  man  wither  away  like  a  plant." 

Who  can  think  to  escape  ?    All  men  try  for 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  25 

it.  Even  the  fatalists  seek  safety  in  flight. 
"  We  are  not  worthy  the  high  honor  of  ascend- 
ing to  heaven  so  soon,"  said  the  pious  Muslims, 
when  they  ran  away  from  a  plague-smitten  city. 
In  some  of  the  savage  tribes  of  Borneo,  a  cus- 
tom prevails  of  changing  the  name  of  any  per- 
son who  rises  from  a  severe  sickness ;  as  if,  by 
a  disguise  and  new  personality,  Death  might 
be  deceived  when  he  should  think  to  approach 
again.  But  every  man  falls  when  his  time  has 
come ;  and  there  is  no  remedy.  An  Arabic 
fable  tells  us,  that,  as  a  man  was  one  day  walk- 
ing with  King  Solomon,  they  two  met  the 
Angel  of  Death.  The  man  said  to  Solomon, 
"  The  Angel  looks  as  though  he  wanted  me. 
Order  a  wind  to  take  me  to  India."  Solomon 
did  so  ;  and  when  he  was  gone,  the  king  asked 
the  Angel  what  he  wanted.  Said  he,  "  I  was 
just  ordered  to  take  that  man's  soul  in  India ; 
and  I  was  wondering  that  he  should  be  here 
with  you."  So  my  next  neighbor  went  in  sad- 
ness to  his  physician,  saying,  "J  fear  that  Death 
wants  me.  Order  me  to  go  to  a  foreign  coun- 
try."    And  now  I  have  news  that  he  died  at 


26  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

his  journey's  end.  Can  any  man  escape  ?  At 
about  such  a  time,  in  whatever  place,  the  body 
will  perish.  Is  there  not,  in  the  imagery  of 
Eastern  poets,  a  tree  in  paradise  which  bears  a 
new  leaf  whenever  a  man  is  born  into  the 
world  ?  And  is  not  the  name  of  the  new-born 
babe  inscribed  on  that  new  unfolding  leaf? 
When  that  leaf  upon  the  hills  of  paradise 
begins  to  wither,  the  Death  Angel  goes  forth 
for  his  soul.  We  fall  like  withered  leaves.  By 
the  act  of  sin,  our  bodies  are  made  lawful  sub- 
jects of  King  Death.  Our  clay  belongs  to  him ; 
and  he  will  take  it  when  the  fatal  hour  strikes. 
"  No  words  or  gifts,"  says  the  Buddhist  scrip- 
ture, "  can  conciliate  him :  no  place  is  secure 
from  his  approach.  He  walks  about  night  and 
day :  his  territory  has  nt)  bounds.  There  is  no 
need  of  light  or  sun  where  he  reigns.  He  enters 
the  house  without  passing  through  the  door ; 
and  where  he  comes  there  is  no  escape."  I 
have  read  that  in  one  country  of  the  Orient,  in 
ancient  times,  the  people  did  not  die  as  else- 
where ;  but  on  a  particular  day,  once  a  year, 
they  met  on  a  plain  near  their  chief  cities,  and 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  27 

engaged  in  various  amusements,  "  in  the  midst 
of  which  persons  of  every  age  and  rank  would 
suddenly  stop,  make  a  reverence  to  the  west, 
gird  up  their  loins,  and,  setting  out  at  full  speed 
towards  that  quarter  of  the  desert,  were  no 
more  seen  nor  heard  of."  They  were  called 
away  by  the  Angel  of  Death,  and  went  with  him 
upon  a  swift  journey  through  deserts,  and  over 
snow-clad  mountains,  and  rivers  of  molten  gold 
and  silver,  and  at  last  lay  down  upon  a  verdant 
plain  in  the  midst  of  a  desert;  and  the  turf 
opened  like  a  grave,  and  swallowed  them  up. 
But,  under  whatever  fable  we  disguise  it,  it  is 
always  death,  as  threatened  in  Eden.  When 
you  have  come  to  the  bound  of  life,  you  must- 
cease  your  journeying.1 

God  marks  each  one  of  us,  pointing  us  out 
to  the  deadly  messengers,  as  a  forester  indicates 
trees  for  the  wood-chopper.  So,  in  our  early 
colonial  days,  the  officers  of  king  or  queen 
used  to  go  through  our  forests,  and  place  upon 

1  In  the  words  of  M.  Antoninus, — Meditations:  "Thou 
hast  embarked,  thou  hast  made  the  voyage,  thou  art  come 
to  shore:  get  out!" 


28  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

certain  trees  the  broad  arrow  of  the  British 
navy,  indicating  that,  one  after  another,  they 
should  fall,  and  be  put  to  the  service  of  the 
State.  I  myself  bear  a  mark,  to  fall  I  know 
not  when.  The  first  gray  hair  is  changed  by 
the  silver  finger  of  the  Death  Angel :  he  is  pre- 
paring the  body  to  lie  down  in  the  dust.  So 
bear  we,  upon  our  own  heads,  reminders  of  the 
grave,  like  those  pious  Mussulmans  who  wear 
the  turban,  which  represents  the  pall  of  the 
dead.1  Do  I  stand  in  no  need  of  the  burial 
robe?  My  winding-sheet  may  be  already  on 
the  shelf.  Already,  most  likely,  the  bier  is 
made  on  which  my  clay  will  be  borne  to  the 
grave.  In  some  forest  is  growing  my  coffin; 
or  perhaps  it  has  gone  through  the  mill,  and 
the  carpenter  has  handled  it,  and  it  may  be 
waiting  for  me  at  this  hour,  in  some  unknown 
shop,  whose  door  I  pass  unheeding.  And  the 
graves  are  ready  for  me.  Somewhere  is  a  burial 
lot  for  me,  I  know  not  where ;  but  there  the 
grass  is  now  springing,  and  the  birds  are  sing- 
ing as  they  fly  over  it  or  sit  in  branches  hard 

1  Vainbery,  Travels  in  Central  Asia:  London,  1864. 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  29 

by ;  or  the  snowflakes  now  spread  a  great  white 
sheet  there,  and  the  winds  are  there  singing  the 
wild  songs  of  winter ;  or  perhaps  the  sea-birds 
are  screaming,  and  the  waves  are  clapping  their 
hands  over  the  last  resting-place  of  this  diseased 
and  weary  body.  How  happy,  if  my  death  day 
is  to  me  a  day  of  joy  —  better  than  having  any 
house  above  ground ;  my  pilgrim  soul  entering 
that  day  into  the  house  not  made  with  hands. 

Death  we  cannot  escape.  May  we  not,  then, 
like  men,  turn  about,  and  make  a  friend  of 
death  ?  The  penalty  of  sin  has  passed  on  all. 
Death  is  universal,  impartial,  inevitable.  Come 
it  will,  —  the  last  look  on  the  earthly,  the  clos- 
ing eyes,  the  laying-down  of  the  body  in  the 
narrow  house,  the  opening  of  the  eyes  of  the 
soul  upon  the  eternal  world,  the  standing  before 
the  final  Judge,  —  come  it  will ;  and  the  wise 
will  make  ready. 

Did  you  never  think  that  death  is  always 
close  upon  us,  always  sudden,  unexpected,  since 
we  always  put  far  off  the  day  of  our  own  dying, 
so  that,  whenever  we  lie  down  to  die,  it  will  be 


30  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

a  new  and  surprising  thing  to  us  that  our  own 
turn  has  come  at  last  ?  The  Egyptian  kings  no 
sooner  began  to  reign  than  they  began  to  build 
their  sepulchres ;  yet,  of  fifty  royal  tombs  at 
Thebes,  not  one  is  finished.  The  Pharaohs  were 
surprised  by  Death  before  they  were  ready  for 
him.  "  Death  is  deaf,"  says  the  Spaniard,  "  and, 
when  he  knocks  at  the  door  of  life,  is  alway  in 
a  -hurry,  and  will  not  be  detained,  either  by  fair 
means .  or  force."  An  ingenious  writer  of  the 
sixteenth  century  represents  Death  as  convers- 
ing with  his  victims,  as  if  he  would  know  their 
miserable  excuses  for  delaying  his  work.  "  Were 
I  not  absolute  over  them,"  says  the  rider  upon 
the  pale  horse,  "  they  would  confound  me  with 
their  long  speeches ;  but  I  have  business,  and 
must  gallop  on." 

"  Of  all  the  gods,  Death  only  craves  not  gifts: 
Nor  sacrifice,  nor  yet  drink-offering  poured 
Avails;  no  altars  hath  he,  nor  is  soothed 
By  hymns  of  praise.' ' 

How  many  of  Death's  messengers  give  abso- 
lutely no  warning.     In  the  tornado,  Death  rides 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  31 

swift  as  the  whirlwind.  A  burning  mountain 
pours  destruction  upon  crowded  cities  in  a 
moment.  Dwelling-houses  become  tombs,  when 
the  earth  itself  is  rising  and  falling  like  the 
waves  of  the  sea.  Men,  women,  and  children 
are,  in  a  second  of  time,  snatched  from  their 
ordinary  employments,  and  hurried  at  once  into 
eternity.  "  I  was  sitting,  playing  with  my  kit- 
ten, and  just  going  to  breakfast,"  says  a  writer, 
when  Lisbon  was  destroyed.  "  I  had  one  slip- 
per on,  and  the  other  was  in  pussy's  mouth, 
when  my  attention  was  roused  by  the  sudden 
sound  of  thunder.  The  floor  heaved  under  me, 
and  I  saw  the  spire  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Virgin  come  tumbling  to  the  ground  like  a 
plaything  overturned  by  a  child.  I  rushed  into 
the  street,  unknowing  what  I  did  and  where  I 
went,  and  beheld  such  a  scene  as  made  it  come 
into  my  mind  that  the  end  of  all  things  was  at 
hand,  and  that  this  was  the  judgment-day  ap- 
pointed by  God.  By  this  time  the  air  was  filled 
with  the  screams  of  the  mangled  and  the  dying. 
The  dwellings  of  men,  the  trophies  of  conquest, 
the  temples  of  God,  were  falling  all  around  me, 


32  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

and  my  escape  appeared  impossible.  I  made 
up  my  mind  for  death."  We  read  in  the 
ancient  records  of  Israel  that  a  wall  fell  upon 
twenty-seven  thousand  of  the  men  left.  Ca- 
lamities like  that  of  the  Pemberton  Mill  in 
Lawrence  are  of  old  time,  and  common  to  all 
ages. 

Death  rides  as  figure-head  of  our  great  ships 
of  life,  or  at  the  helm ;  and  in  mist,  or  storm, 
or  sunshine,  men  perish,  going  down  into  the 
waters  of  death  as  a  ship  suddenly  sinking  at 
sea.  A  packet  strikes  an  iceberg,  and  many 
passengers  go  down  asleep.  The  cyclone  comes 
sweeping  through  the  sky,  without  cloud  or 
warning,  often  not  even  touching  the  surface 
of  the  sea  to  ruffle  the  smooth  waves ;  But  in  an 
instant  the  masts  may  be  torn  out  of  the  ship 
or  the  ship  founders,  and  all  the  crew  sink 
unheralded  into  the  gloomy  caverns  of  the 
deep.  There  is  only  one  moment  of  time  be- 
tween voyaging  in  the  Indian  Ocean  or  the 
Chinese  seas,  and  sailing  the  unknown  waters 
of  the  realms  of  death.  Or  how  often,  upon 
the  land,  there  is  one  crash,  and  a  throng  of 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  33 

swift  travellers  are  lying  beside  the  track,  amid 
the  ruins  of  a  train. 

"  How  many  souls  o'ertake,  ere  night, 
The  prayer  they  poured  in  the  morning  light!  " 

Death  is  always  close  at  hand.     It  is  writ- 
ten :  — 

"  If  a  man  could  see 
The  perils  and  diseases  that  he  elbows 
Each  day  he  walks  a  mile,  which  catch  at  him, 
Which  fall  behind  him  as  he  passes, 
Then  he  would  know  that  life's  a  single  pilgrim, 
Fighting  unarmed  amongst  a  thousand-soldiers. ' ' 

Death  is  ever  close  by  us,  though  he  be 
noticed  only  as  the  beating  of  our  own  hearts  is 
noticed  in  moments  of  fear.  This  fact  is  the 
grand  secret  which  has  given  popularity  to  those 
singular  pictorial  representations  that  have  ap- 
peared now  and  then  in  times  past,  some  in  ages 
quite  remote.  "  Death  "  is  not  much  called  for 
in  our  public  libraries ;  but  the  pictorial  lite- 
rature of  the  subject  is  by  no  means  without 
interest.  Every  little  while,  some  artist  has 
turned  preacher,  and  shown  the  figure  of  Death 

3 


34  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

mingling  in  our  common  pursuits.  For  exam- 
ple, a  countess  is  represented  as  receiving  from 
her  maid  a  splendid  dress ;  and  Death  stands 
behind,  placing  a  necklace  of  bones  about  her 
neck.  A  fop  and  a  fine  lady  are  exhibited  in 
the  latest  style  ;  but  one-half  of  each  figure  shows 
the  skeleton.  Death  is  pictured  as  helping  gird 
the  armor  upon  a  warrior  in  the  morning  that 
he  goes  forth  to  be  slain.  It  is  Death  who  leads 
a  blind  man  by  the  hand  to  the  last  fatal  step. 
A  youthful  poet  sits  penning  an  ode  to  Immor- 
tality; and  JDeath  stands  grinning  behind  his 
chair.  An  artist  paints  the  figure  of  Death 
with  his  scythe  ;  and,  in  a  moment  after,  he 
himself  feels  the  clipping  of  the  scythe.  The 
Great  Destroyer  is  pictured  in  the  act  of  remov- 
ing a  wheel  from  a  carriage  upon  the  street,  or 
attacking  a  ship  at  sea,  breaking  the  mast,  and 
preparing  to  plunge  all  into  the  deep.  Death 
"  waylays  the  alderman  in  the  last  spoonful  of 
turtle."  Hogarth,  in  the  last  work  that  he  did, 
painted  what  he  thought  about  his  own  nearness 
to  death :  it  was  called  "  The  World's  End," 
representing  the  wreck  of  all  things.    There  was 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  35 

a  ruined  tower  and  a  crumbling  crown,  a  map 
of  the  world  on  fire,  an  old  broom  worn  to  the 
handle,  an  unstrung  bow,  a  broken  bottle,  and 
a  cracked  bell,  a  waning  moon,  a  stranded  ship,, 
the  scythe  and  glass  of  Time  broken,  and  a 
painter's  palette  broken  with  it. 

So  Death  is  always  near  by,  watching  us,  and 
turning  his  hour-glass,  waiting  for  our  sands  to 
run  out.  Death  approaches  secretly,  as  the 
unseen  springs  of  a  watch  cease  to  uncoil,  or  as 
the  clock-weight  runs  down  unseen.  One  mo- 
ment it  is  ticking,  then  it  ceases.  You  know 
not  how  soon  life  will  stop.  Daily  dying,  we 
draw  near  to  death  every  day  by  a  certain  num- 
ber of  steps:  on  the  actual  day  of  dying,  the 
same  steps  are  taken ;  and  they  lead  into  the 
open  grave.  We  are  nearing  the  grave  daily, 
although  engaged  in  various  occupations ;  as 
men  on  a  ship  are  borne  towards  their  port  in 
hours  of  slumber  or  of  diverse  employments. 
Little  by  little  we  are  approaching  our  final 
destiny.  We  walk  in  our  common  paths,  and 
there  is  nothing  unusual  to  warn  us  of  the  near- 
ness of  the  eternal  world  ;  and  the  last  steps  are 


36  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

taken  before  we  are  aware  of  it.  If  we  are  to 
die  by  lingering  illness,  we  go  to  our  bed,  and 
deliberately  lie  down  upon  it,  to  rise  no  more ; 
or,  if  we  are  to  die  suddenly,  we  carefully  and 
surely  and  boldly  and  thoughtlessly,  pick  our 
steps  to  the  place  where  we  are  to  fall.  Here 
is  a  neighbor,  perhaps,  who  is  at  work  in  his 
orchard,  and  he  suddenly  loses  his  hold,  and 
drops  to  the  ground,  and  is  dead.  And  here  is 
a  place,  by  the  side  of  our  highway,  where  man 
and  beast  stop  to  quench  their  thirst.  A  stran- 
ger, in  alighting  from  his  carriage,  makes  a  mis- 
step ;  and  we  see  him  on  the  ground  under  the 
iron  hoofs,  and  he  is  dead.  When  the  fatal  hour 
arrives,  the  life  is  ended,  whether  it  be  by  the 
hand  of  disease,  or  of  distressing  accident.  So 
it  is  that  men  step  from  their  common  business 
into  the  presence  of  God. 

If,  therefore,  we  are  doomed  to  die  by  strange 
deaths  on  account  of  sin,  and  if  the  sentence 
embraces  the  whole  human  family,  and  if  no 
condition  is  exempt,  and  if  death  is  certain  as 
the  decrees  of  fate,  and  if  we  are  to  be  surprised, 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  37 

as  it  were,  without  warning,  we  shall  act  wisely 
if  we  are  always  prepared  for  it.  Those  who 
are  exposed  to  great  peril  should  be  always 
ready  to  die.  In  respect  of  danger,  this  planet 
we  call  home  is  a  mere  powder-mill,  and  any 
moment  may  send  us  flying  hence.  But  un- 
heeding men  do  not  think.  A  blinding  pros- 
perity may  bear  one  to  the  very  edge  of  the 
grave.  Waving  harvests,  rising  warehouses, 
increasing  riches,  and  the  joys  of  life,  song  and 
fruit  and  flower,  may  be  ours  even  up  to  the 
very  morning  of  our  last  sunrise.  "  In  an  hour 
that  he  is  not  aware  of,"  the  Lord  cometh.  See- 
ing, then,  that  all  these  things  shall  be  dissolved, 
what  manner  of  persons  ought  ye  to  be  in  all 
holy  conversation  and  godliness  ?  Said  Rabbi 
Eliezer  to  his  disciples,  — 

"  Turn  to  God  one  day  before  your  death." 
"  How  can  man,"  they  asked,  "  know  the  day 
of  his  death  ?  " 

"True,"  answered  Eliezer:  "therefore,  you 
should  turn  to  God  to-day ;  perhaps  you  may 
die  to-morrow  :  thus  every  day  will  be  employed 
in  turning  to  him." 


38  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

It  is  certain  you  will  die,  uncertain  when. 
Do  you  put  on  airs  as  if  to  live  on  the  earth 
forever  ?  Will  you  build  a  house  at  the  grave's 
mouth?  Your  pulse  will  quickly  cease,  your 
eyes  darken,  your  face  pale,  your  frame  chill ; 
men  will  forget  you ;  and  others  will  move  into 
the  home  you  now  occupy,  and  make  merry  in 
the  room  where  you  died. 

If  I  revisit,  for  the  first  time  in  twenty  years, 
a  town  in  which  I  once  knew  all  the  families,  I 
am  startled  at  the  havoc  death  has  made  :  whole 
families  have  moved  into  the  burial-ground.  I 
feel  my  insecurity,  and,  for  the  moment,  won- 
der at  my  own  escape.  But  it  is  only  for  the 
moment.  My  mind  turns  like  that  of  Justice 
Shallow :  — 

"  The  mad  days  that  I  have  spent !  And  to  see 
how  many  of  mine  old  acquaintance  are  dead !  " 

Silence,  —  "  We  shall  all  follow,  cousin." 

Shallow.  —  "  Certain,  'tis  certain ;  very  sure, 
very  sure.  Death,  as  the  Psalmist  saith,  is  cer- 
tain to  all :  all  shall  die.  —  How  a  good  yoke  of 
bullocks  at  Stamford  Fair?" 

The  price  of  oxen  will  not  allow  long  moral- 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  39 

izing  on  the  certainty  of  death.  So  the  world 
goes.  We  shall  soon  die ;  and  we  stand  like 
brutes,  gazing  into  the  barnyard.  What  is  the 
price  of  bullocks  ? 

"  All  men  think  all  men  mortal  but  themselves." 

"  Well,  what  do  you  think  of  the  world  to 
come?"  —  "Truly,  my  lord,  I  think  of  it  as 
little  as  I  can."  *  But  no  effort  to  keep  out  of 
mind  all  thoughts  that  relate  to  death  and  eter- 
nity can  change  the  circumstances  in  which  we 
find  ourselves.  It  is  with  us  in  this  life  as  if 
we  were  transacting  our  common  business  in 
ferrying  to  and  fro  upon  some  strong  current, 
like  Niagara,  which  will,  on  some  unknown  day, 
certainly  bear  us  over  the  rapids  and  the  preci- 
pice into  the  eternal  world.  Frequently,  by 
sickness  or  accident,  we  are  actually  borne 
downward  almost  to  the  brink :  God  arrests  our 
course,  and  brings  us  back  to  our  ordinary  em- 
ployments. We  are  to  make  it  one  of  our  em- 
ployments, every  day,  to  prepare  for  the  hour 
when  we   ourselves  shall  quit  our  hold   upon 

1  Swift's  Polite  Conversation. 


40  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

the  earth  to  enter  the  unseen  world.  Are  not 
graves  opening  all  around  us  ?  By  the  newly- 
opened  graves  let  us  lay  aside  all  our  careless 
unconcern  for  the  eternal  world,  that  we  may 
prepare  in  good  earnest  for  the  life  to  come. 
Can  we  long  tread  these  streets  ?  There  are 
whole  fields  not  far  from  us,  which  are  billowed 
with  graves.  Our  ordinary  employments  call 
upon  us  to  go  past  the  sleeping-places  of  the 
dead.  Do  we  never  think  to  pause,  and  count 
the  faces  that  are  turned  upward  ?  How  many 
eyes  are  closed  close  under  our  feet !  Close 
beside  our  path  are  many  feet  crossed,  —  feet 
once  busy,  walking  where  we  walk  to-day,  now 
waiting  to  move  toward  the  bar  of  judgment. 
Ere  our  feet  are  crossed,  and  we  lie  down  beside 
them,  let  us  make  many  steps  on  the  highway 
of  heaven.  Men  are  so  engrossed  in  their  com- 
mon affairs,  that  they  need  the  very  touch  of 
the  dead  to  arouse  them.  It  is  said  that  the 
ancient  Thebans  used  to  carry  coffins  into  their 
banquet-rooms,  that  they  might  never  forget 
the  presence  of  death  at  every  festival.  Almost 
every  day  we  are  brought   into   contact  with 


BUILDING  IN  THE  DUST.  4J 

some  coffin.  We  are  called  from  our  regular 
work  to  attend  upon  the  dying,  to  bury  the 
dead,  and  to  weep  over  the  grave.  Shall  not 
such  scenes  remind  us  of  our  own  nearness  to 
Death,  and  of  his  inevitable  approach  to  us? 
It  is  related  that  a  man  was  once  drifting  in  the 
sea  upon  a  life-preserver,  after  a  wreck.  He 
was  alone  in  the  night,  floating  in  the  darkness ; 
and  his  soul  was  in  dense  darkness,  and  he 
expected  to  die  before  the  morning.  He  was  a 
bad  man.  He  had  long  despised  Christ,  and  he 
still  rejected  him.  He  could  not,  during  two 
hours,  make  up  his  mind  to  apply  to  Jesus  for 
mercy,  when,  suddenly,  the  body  of  one  dead, 
borne  on  the  waves,  struck  him.  This  broke 
the  spell ;  and  he  gave  himself  up  to  God  at 
once,  and  found  Christ  as  his  personal  Saviour. 
Is  it  possible  that  any  one  can  be  so  insensible 
as  to  receive  no  shock  from  the  sudden  touch 
of  the  dead  ? 

"  Be  wise  to-day;  'tis  madness  to  defer." 

Prepare  to  meet  thy  God.  In  such  an  hour  as 
ye  think  not,  the  Son  of  man  cometh. 


42  THE  SILENT  HOUSE, 


II. 
NEAR  HOME. 

In  some  year,  it  will  be  written  of  each  of  us, 
as  once  of  the  lying  prophet,  u  This  year  thou 
shalt  die."  It  will  be  written,  —  This  year,  thy 
clay  shall  crumble,  and  thy  spirit  flee ;  this  year, 
thine  eyes  shall  close  to  this  world,  and  open 
upon  eternal  scenes ;  this  year,  the  music  of 
earth  shall  cease  to  please  thine  ear,  and  thou 
shalt  hear  immortal  songs  or  wailings.  Shall 
that  busy  tongue  of  thine  this  year  go  down 
into  the  land  of  silence  ?  Shall  thy  feet  step 
off  the  brink  of  the  common  life  to  visit  the 
grave  ?  Shall  thine  industrious  hands  be  sud- 
denly folded,  and  laid  to  rest  ? 

This  year  thou  shalt  die.  This  year, — before 
the  winter  snows  are  gone,  or  in  the  bright 
spring-time,  or  in  the  heated  summer,  or  in  the 
burdened  autumn, — thy  body  shall  enter  a  new 


NEAR  HOME.  43 

grave.  This  year  thou  shalt  die.  Thou,  the 
strong  child,  or  youth,  or  man,  or  hoary  head. 
Thou  enfeebled  one,  having  had  so  long  the 
finger-marks  of  death  about  thee,  thou  shalt  go 
to  thy  grave.  Thou,  the  man  of  large  plans 
and  pressing  business,  and  thou  who  only  seek- 
est  bread  for  a  day.  Careless  one,  thoughtless 
of  God  and  eternity,  thou  shalt  this  year  enter 
the  unseen  world.  Praying  man,  this  year  thou 
shalt  die,  and  see  God.  Mourning  one,  this 
year  thy  tears  shall  cease. 

Suddenly  and  soon  your  eyes  will  be  opened 
to  behold  another  world.  Perhaps  not  this 
year  is  it  written  of  you, —  This  year  thou  shalt 
die ;  but  soon  it  will  be.  A  few  more  vain 
struggles  of  vain  days,  and  all  will  be  over: 
your  funeral  prayer  will  be  said,  and  you  will 
be  beyond  the  reach  of  prayers.  No  one  looks 
to  die  this  year.  Many  are  ill  fitted  to  die  this 
year.  Yet  who  knows  whether  his  own  name 
may  not  be  on  the  secret  record,  where  it  is 
written,  —  This  year  thou  shalt  die  ? 

We  shall  readily  believe  that  we  are  liable  to 


44  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

die  at  almost  any  moment,  and  that  we  shall  die 
very  soon,  if  we  consider  the  ancient  Scriptures, 
which  set  forth  to  us,  by  various  symbols,  the 
brevity  of  life.  And  if,  besides,  we  look  about, 
and  see  with  what  armory  death  is  furnished  in 
the  diseases  which  finally  carry  us  off,  we  shall 
think  there  is  nothing  certain  about  life,  save 
its  uncertainty.  And  we  shall  ask  each  other 
whether  we  ought  not,  as  men  of  good  judgment, 
to  make  certain  preparation  for  certain  death. 

The  Scriptures  continually  remind  us  that 
our  spiritual  treasures  are  given  us  in  earthen 
vessels.  The  men  of  the  East  saw  the  imagery 
of  death  appearing  in  the  common  transactions 
of  the  daily  life.  The  story-telling  Orient  is 
reminded  by  the  great  Hebrew  lawgiver,  that 
we  spend  our  years  as  a  tale  that  is  told.  The 
exciting  plot  is  quickly  finished.  We  hurry 
from  one  incident  to  another,  and  it  soon  ap- 
pears how  all  will  end :  the  tragic  scenes  and 
the  comic  are  talked  over,  and  death  carries  us 
away.  The  lives  of  a  thousand  and  one  men 
are  very  like  the  Thousand  and  One   Arabian 


NEAR  HOME.  45 

Nights ;  each  tale  occupying  the  attention  for 
an  hour,  and  then  it  is  gone  by  forever.  Again, 
some  called  death  a  sleep :  we  do  not  notice 
that  we  are  asleep  till  we  wake  up,  and  it  is  all 
over.  Zophar,  the  Naamathite,  reflected  on  the 
unsubstantial  nature  of  dreams:  and  he  said 
that  the  memory  of  a  man's  life  upon  the  earth 
would  fly  away  like  a  dream,  and  not  be  found ; 
chased  away  as  a  vision  of  the  night. 

The  sacred  poets,  also,  looked  upon  the 
handcraft  of  men  as  declaring  most  forcibly 
the  shortness  of  our  life.  When,  for  example, 
Job  saw  the  weavers  at  their  work,  and  the 
swift-flying  shuttle,  he  said,  that,  every  time  it 
passed  across  the  loom,  it  was  like  one  of  his 
days,  running  so  quickly.  And  when  King 
Hezekiah  saw  the  workman  cutting  his  thread 
or  his  web,  he  said  that  was  the  way  disease 
had  nearly  cut  off  his  life.  When,  also,  the 
king,  journeying  through  the  country,  saw  the 
little  shelter-tent  of  a  shepherd  on  the  hillside, 
with  the  flocks  grazing  near  by,  and  then,  on 
returning  the  next  day,  saw  that  the  tent- 
dweller  had  gone,  he  looked  upon  it  as  the 


46  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

symbol  of  his  own  life,  which  would  be  re- 
moved like  a  shepherd's  tent.  And  when  a 
royal  messenger  went  through  the  country, 
riding  in  hot  haste,  —  appearing  over  the  rim 
of  a  basin  in  the  desert,  dashing  through  it, 
and  disappearing  over  the  next  ridge,  —  an 
old  patriarch  stood  in  his  tent-door,  and  said, 
"My  days  are  swifter  than  a  post;  they  flee 
away,  they  see  no  good."  And  he  who  looked 
forth  upon  the  Red  Sea  or  the  blue  Mediter- 
ranean, and  saw  white  sails,  then,  in  an  hour, 
looked  and  saw  them  no  more,  said  that  the  days 
of  man  are  passing  away  like  the  swift  ships. 

So,  too,  when  these  thoughtful  men  looked 
abroad  upon  the  objects  of  Nature,  it  was  only 
to  see  Death  riding  in  the  sky,  or  darkening 
the  earth.  The  sky  above,  and  the  earth 
beneath,  are  covered  with  the  signs  of  our  mor- 
tality :  fleeting  clouds,  and  falling  leaves,  and 
fading  grasses  are  everywhere  expressing  the 
fact,  that  under  the  unchanging  heavens,  and 
on  the  enduring  earth,  all  things  are  passing 
away,  like  the  vain  life  of  him  who  is  proudly 
called  "  the  lord  of  creation."     A  voice  said,  — 


NEAR  HOME.  47 

Ciy.  And  he  said,  What  shall  I  cry?  All 
flesh  is  grass,  and  all  the  goodliness  thereof  is 
as  the  flower  of  the  field :  the  grass  withereth, 
the  flower  fadeth ;  because  the  spirit  of  the 
Lord  bloweth  upon  it :  surely  the  people  is 
grass.  We  hear  the  mowers  in  the  heat  of 
summer ;  but  it  is  always  harvest-time  with 
the  reaper  Death.  Every  day  is  heard  the 
sharp  ring  of  his  scythe.  But  as  men  sigh, 
and  move  straight  on  when  flowers  fade,  so 
the  work  of  death  is  scarcely  heeded.  "  We 
all  do  fade  as  the  leaf,"  said  the  Hebrew 
prophet.  Men  appear  on  the  earth  like  forest- 
leaves,  and  they  perish  in  myriads  year  by  year. 
So,  too,  the  Greek  poet  saw  the  generations  of 
men  coming  and  going  :  — 

"  The  wind  in  autumn  strews 
The  earth  with  old  leaves  ;  then  the  spring  the  woods 

with  new  endows  : 
And  so  death  scatters  men  on  earth ;  so  life  puts  out 

again 
Man's  leavy  issue." 

These  imaginative  people  of  the  Orient,  in 
like  manner,  watched  the  shadows  day  by  day ; 


48  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

and  they  said,  that  man  fieeth  as  a  shadow, 
and  continueth  not.  Again  one  prayed,  "  Re- 
member that  my  life  is  wind."  Yesterday  a 
wind  murmured,  shrieked,  and  was  no  more ; 
to-day  the  breeze  sings  sweetly,  or  drearily 
howls  and  dies ;  to-morrow  another  and  an- 
other wind  may  sweep  over  the  earth :  and  so 
it  is  with  the  lives  of  men,  —  "a  wind  that 
passeth  away,  and  cometh  not  again."  "  As 
the  whirlwind  passeth,  so  is  the  wicked  no 
more."  Life,  moreover,  is  like  a  cloud  driven 
before  the  wind,  —  a  cloud  dark  and  gloomy,  or 
bright  in  the  noonday,  or  painted  at  sunset,  —  a 
vapor  that  appeareth  for  a  time,  then  vanisheth 
away.  What  is  your  life  ?  It  is  consumed 
like  a  cloud,  melting  into  the  blue  of  heaven, 
or  borne  beyond  sight  by  the  breath  of  the 
tempest. 

One  of  our  own  poets  has  said, — 

11 1  am  :  how  little  more  I  know! 
Whence  came  I  ?    Whither  do  I  go  ? 
A  centred  self,  which  feels  and  is; 
A  cry  between  the  silences; 
A  shadow-birth  of  clouds  at  strife 
With  sunshine  on  the  hills  of  life; 


NEAR  HOME. 

A  shaft  from  Nature's  quiver 
Into  the  future  from  the  past; 
Between  the  cradle  and  the  shrouayc ; 
A  meteor's  flight  from  cloud  to  cloud." 


The  great  dramatic  poet  of  England  has 
given  us  the  seven  ages  of  man,  —  the  mewling 
infant,  the  whining  schoolboy,  the  sighing 
lover,  the  bearded  soldier,  the  well-rounded 
magistrate,  the  tremulous  old  man,  and  the 
second  childhood.  So  men  and  women  pass 
over  the  world's  stage  as  mere  players.  If, 
likewise,  we  open  our  Scriptures,  we  find  dif- 
ferent words,  for  seven  ages,  to  represent  man's 
life.  At  first,  human  existence  was  measured 
by  centuries.  But  the  Ninetieth  Psalm  records 
threescore  and  ten  years  as  the  limit  of  life. 
Job,  however,  spoke  not  of  years,  when  he 
declared  that  the  number  of  a  man's  months  is 
with  God.  Again,  it  was  said  that  man  that  is 
born  of  a  woman  is  of  few  days.  Once  more, 
prayer  is  made  that  God  will  wait  till  a  man 
accomplish  as  an  hireling  his  day;  as  though 
one  day's  work  might  cover  it  all.  A  New 
Testament  saint,  who   reflected  much   on  the 

4 


50  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

future  blessedness  which  will  never  cease,  de- 
clared that  our  light  affliction  in  this  life  is  but 
for  a  moment.  And  one  dwelling  under  the 
shadow  of  Him  who  is  from  everlasting  declared 
unto  God,  "Mine  age  is  as  nothing  before  thee." 
The  centuries  give  place  to  years ;  the  years,  to 
months  ;  the  months,  to  days ;  the  days,  to  one 
day  ;  one  day,  to  a  moment ;  the  moment,  to  a 
cipher,  as  the  true  symbol  of  the  life  of  man. 

The  philosophers  and  poets  of  every  age 
have  delighted  to  set  forth  the  brevity  of  life 
by  like  symbols.  The  poet  Euripides  called 
life  "  a  little  day."  Aristotle  described  certain 
creatures  on  the  River  Hypanis,  that  live  only 
one  day :  those  which  die  at  eight  in  the  morn- 
ing die  in  youth,  and  those  that  die  at  five  in 
the  evening  reach  old  age:  so  the  life  of  an 
aged  man  is  little  longer  than  that  of  a  child. 
Do  we  weep  for  one  who  has  gone  before  noon- 
day? Our  separation  is  short,  since  we  our- 
selves shall  follow  before  nightfall.  When  Sir 
Thomas  More  was  threatened  with  death,  he 
answered,  "  Is  that  all,  my  lord  ?  Then,  in  good 
faith,  the  difference  between  your  Grace  and  me 


NEAR  HOME.  51 

is  but  this,  —  that  I  shall  die  to-day,  and  you 
to-morrow."  When  Saadi  met  a  man  in  Damas- 
cus, who  was  dying  at  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  old,  he  heard  him  lamenting,  "I  said, 
coming  into  the  world  by  birth,  4 1  will  enjoy 
myself  for  a  few  moments.'  Alas !  at  the  varie- 
gated table  of  life  I  partook  of  a  few  mouth- 
fuls ;  and  the  fates  said,  4  Enough  ! '" 

Shadow,  cloud,  smoke,  wind,  swift  arrow, 
fading  flower,  bubbles  rising  and  breaking  on 
the  stream,  snowflakes  falling  on  the  sea, — 
these  are  the  emblems  of  life.  Is  the  body 
called  the  house  of  the  soul,  it  soon  crumbles ; 
is  it  the  tent,  the  tabernacle,  it  is  moved  away ; 
is  it  the  clothing  of  the  soul,  the  vesture  soon 
decays ;  is  it  called  the  casket  holding  a  precious 
jewel,  the  clay  cracks,  and  the  treasure  is 
removed.  "  Surely  every  man  walketh  in  a  vain 
show."  So  many  die  every  day,  that  men  think 
of  it  as  of  the  common  sunset,  or  the  fading  of 
the  rainbow  from  a  summer  sky.  A  man's 
cradle  and  his  coffin  may  be  made  from  the 
same  tree.  Life  is  a  short  journey,  but  very 
grievous ;  as  one  makes  a  painful  passage  over 


52  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

rough  seas  between  ports  near  each  other.  He 
who  floats  for  a  moment  on  life's  troubled 
waters  soon  sinks  beneath  the  waves ;  and  the 
noise  of  the  sea,  —  the  rush  and  tumult  of  tide 
and  storm,  —  is  still  lifting  up  its  voice  as 
proudly  as  before.  Unmeasured  years  are  in 
the  eternal  state ;  and  the  years  that  can  be 
counted  soon  go  by,  like  the  ships  which  pass 
out  of  shallow  harbors  into  the  deep  sea. 

We  shall  do  wisely,  if  we  all  join  in  the 
prayer  of  the  man  of  God:  "So  teach  us  to 
number  our  days,  that  we  may  apply  our  hearts 
unto  wisdom."  "  Of  all  numbers,"  said  the 
Puritan  pastor,  "  we  cannot  skill  to  number 
our  days.  We  can  number  our  sheep,  and  our 
oxen,  and  our  coin;  but  we  think  that  our 
days  are  infinite,  and,  therefore,  we  never  go 
about  to  number  them.  We  can  number  other 
men's  days  and  years,  and  think  they  will  die 
ere  it  be  long,  if  we  see  them  sick,  or  sore,  or 
cold ;  but  we  cannot  number  our  own."  And, 
if  we  turn  to  the  Genevan  Reformer,  we  hear 
him  saying,  u  Even  the  most  accomplished  ac- 
countant is  unable  to  calculate    the  fourscore 


NEAR  HOME,  53 

years  of  his  own  existence.  .  .  .  They  can  tell 
how  far  asunder  are  the  several  planets,  and  how 
many  miles  it  is  from  the  centre  of  the  moon 
to  the  centre  of  the  earth;  but  they  cannot 
measure  the  threescore  years  and  ten  which 
divide  the  cradle  from  the  grave."  We  see,  all 
around  us,  men  spending  their  lives  in  reckon- 
ing, who  find  it  difficult  to  count  up  their  own 
age ;  and,  as  they  approach  the  limit  of  life, 
they  lieed  not  the  increasing  years.  In  Eng- 
land, a  man l  has  been,  for  some  time,  employed 
in  reckoning  up  the  limitations  of  life ;  and  it 
is  found,  that,  where  a  million  persons  set  forth 
together,  more  than  a  quarter  part  die  before 
they  are  past  five  years  old ;  nearly  four  hun- 
dred thousand  of  them  drop  out  by  the  way 
before  thirty  years  are  past ;  at  forty-five,  only 
one-half  still  pursue  their  journey ;  at  seventy, 
only  twenty-three  men  out  of  a  hundred  main- 
tain the  thinned  ranks ;  at  fourscore  and  ten, 
ninety  and  nine  in  every  hundred  have  become 
weary  of  the  road,  and  repose  in  the  last  sleep; 
at  the  end  of  the  century,  only  two  out  of  ten 

1  Dr.  Farr,  register-general. 


54  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

thousand  still  struggle  forward;  and  soon  the 
work  of  numbering  is  finished.  But  is  it  not, 
we  ask,  a  mistake,  to  say  of  any  man  that  he 
has  really  lived  a  hundred  years  ?  Some,  per- 
haps, have  remained  upon  the  earth  so  long. 
But,  when  we  ask  how  much  true  living  there 
has  been,  we  must  apply  to  the  ancient  Jews, 
who,  in  numbering  man's  days,  took  out  in  one 
stroke  one-half  the  years  for  sleep,  and  then  all 
the  years  of  youth  which  Solomon  called  van- 
ity, then  the  days  of  sorrow,  in  which  a  man 
would  rather  die  than  live,  —  and  what  is  left 
is  called  life.  Who  can  so  number  his  days, 
and  look  on  them  as  desirable  ?  Let  us  hear 
the  voice  of  Augustine  :  "  Sooner  or  later  every 
man  must  die ;  and  we  groan  and  pray,  and 
travail  in  pain,  and  cry  to  God  that  we  may 
die  a  little  later."  "  Men  desire  thousands  of 
days,  and  wish  to  live  long  here:  rather  let 
them  despise  thousands  of  days,  and  desire 
that  one  which  hath  neither  dawn  nor  darken- 
ing, to  which  no  yesterday  gives  place,  which 
yields  to  no  to-morrow." 


NEAR  HOME.  55 

Our  sense  of  the  brevity  of  life,  and  the 
nearness  of  the  eternal  world,  may,  perhaps,  be 
quickened,  if  we  turn  to  look  upon  some  of 
the  weapons  which  death  is  always  handling  in 
the  assault  upon  human  life. 

The  Scandinavian  mythology  relates  that 
Hela,  or  Death,  dwells  in  the  hall  Elvidnir; 
that  Hunger  is  her  table,  and  Starvation  her 
knife ;  that  she  is  waited  upon  by  Delay  and 
Slowness  for  man  and  maid ;  that  her  bed  is 
Care ;  and  that  Burning  Anguish  furnishes  the 
hangings  of  her  apartments;  and  that  her 
threshold  is  a  precipice.  In  some  strange  pal- 
ace, Death  is  now  holding  high  court ;  and  the 
attendants  bear  names  that  strike  terror  into 
the  human  soul.  Famine  invades  the  country, 
and  pestilence  breaks  in  upon  the  city.  There 
is  heard  a  great  cry ;  for  there  is  not  a  house 
where  there  is  not  one  dead. 

"  The  plague  runs  festering  through  the  town, 
And  never  a  bell  is  tolling; 
And  corpses,  jostled  'neath  the  moon, 
Nod  to  dead-cart's  rolling." 


56  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

An  eminent  German  physician  estimated,  that, 
in  the  middle  ages,  the  black  death,  within  six 
years,  took  away  twenty-five  million  victims,  — 
one  quarter  of  Europe;  in  some  towns,  half 
the  inhabitants.  But,  in  these  very  days  in 
which  we  live,  death  sweeps  away  from  the 
earth  every  year  a  population  equal  to  three- 
fourths  of  the  United  States.  We  need  not, 
therefore,  turn  to  exceptional  and  violent  mani- 
festations of  the  power  of  Him  who  cuts  down 
earth's  inhabitants.  It  is  the  common  every- 
day mortality  which  is  the  most  alarming.  In 
many  homes,  in  this  very  hour,  mothers  are 
closing  the  eyes  of  their  babes,  or  children 
are  watching  the  passing  breath  of  father  or 
mother.  In  some  house,  the  wife  is  this  mo- 
ment clinging  to  the  hand  of  her  husband,  not 
willing  to  believe  that  he  is  dead :  in  some 
other  house,  the  husband  is  holding  in  his  arms 
the  clay,  not  yet  cold,  of  his  dead  wife.  Many 
a  physician  is  now  watching  by  a  death-bed, 
noticing  the  changes  wrought  by  approaching 
death.  "By  the  stillness  of  the  sharpened 
features,"  says  one,  "by  the  blackness  of  the 


NEAR  HOME.  57 

tearless  eye,  by  the  fixedness  of  the  smileless 
mouth,  by  the  deadening  tints,  by  the  con- 
tracted brow,  the  dilating  nostril,  we  know 
that  the  soul  is  soon  to  leave  its  mortal  tene- 
ment, and  is  already  closing  its  windows,  and 
putting  out  its  fires." 

In  how  many  cases  is  life  no  sooner  begun 
than  it  is  done.  Children  are  born,  merely  to 
die.  Lines  of  death  straightway  gird  about 
every  one  entering  this  world,  —  infantile  dis- 
eases, and  unnumbered  perils  in  childhood  and 
youth.  In  adult  life,  also,  diseases  lie  down- 
like spies  in  our  bodies,  ready  to  attack  us  any 
moment  we  are  off  our  guard.  The  presence 
of  the  deadly  enemy  may,  perhaps,  be  never 
suspected,  till  suddenly,  as  by  the  lightning 
stroke,  the  strong  man  falls  at  his  work.  Si- 
lent decay  is  upon  us,  so  that  our  life  naturally 
runs  into  death,  like  a  .river  running  into  the 
sea ;  falling  into  it  suddenly,  as  a  cataract ;  or, 
by  lingering  disease,  the  life  plays  with  the  tides 
of  death  for  a  long  time  before  it  yields  itself 
up.  In  the  market,  the  street,  the  field,  our 
houses,  or  the  house  of  God,  we  often  see  those 


58  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

who  have  upon  them  the  signs  of  death,  or  who 
have  the  dying  at  their  homes.  Our  first  ques- 
tion is,  "  How  is  your  health  ?  "  or,  "  How  is 
my  friend  ?  "  lest,  since  we  last  took  that  hand, 
death  may  have  touched  it.  Often  we  go  into 
a  company,  thinking  that  there  will  soon  be  so 
many  funerals  as  there  are  persons  present. 
Sometimes  we  fix  our  eyes  upon  a  particular 
man,  and  imagine  how  he  will  look  when  his 
clay  is  cold,  and  his  face  is  upturned  in  the 
coffin,  waiting  the  last  gaze  of  his  companions. 
How  soon  will  those  who  bear  the  dead  go  into 
every  house  in  a  neighborhood,  and  carry  the 
men  out,  that  their  bodies  may  be  planted  in 
God's  acre.  Death  is  so  near  us,  that  at  all 
funerals  it  is  the  dead  burying  their  dead :  those 
who  are  about  to  die  bury  those  just  dead. 
All  our  struggle  of  life  is  to  run  away  from 
death.  Men  busily  patch  up  the  body,  as 
some  half-ruined  building,  even  when  the  soul, 
—  for  which  the  body  was  made,  and  to  make 
room  for  which  the  body  will  soon  be  torn 
down,  —  is  left  hungry,  naked,  wounded,  dying 
of  neglect. 


NEAR  HOME.  59 

Could  we  be  introduced  into  every  hospital, 
every  infirmary,  every  sick-chamber,  and  see 
Death's  servants  preparing  for  his  coming,  we 
should  suddenly  fear.  It  is  likely  we  should  be 
of  the  same  mind  as  Thomas  Fuller,  when  he 
debated  of  the  different  modes  of  dying,  and 
said  frankly,  "  None  please  me ; "  but  added, 
that  it  were  ill  in  the  mark  to  choose  the  arrow 
by  which  it  should  be  hit.  Death  shoots  his 
arrows  all  around  us  ;  and  the  longer  we  escape, 
the  greater  the  wonder.  The  engines  of  death 
pour  a  continual  storm  of  weapons  into  the 
citadel  of  life.  The  elements  around  us  conspire 
with  elements  within  the  body  to  lay  beauty 
and  strength  low  in  the  dust.  This  world  was 
designed  for  the  abode  of  a  dying  race.  Heat 
and  cold  and  damp,  extremes  of  temperature, 
and  sudden  changes,  are  servants  to  bring  men 
to  the  house  appointed  for  all  the  living.  Death 
is  always  watching.  He  sees  a  woman  going 
often  out  into  the  cold  winds  with  bare  head, 
and  with  shoulders  exposed  ;  and  some  morning 
he  shoots  his  dart  into  her  unshielded  sides. 
The  death-angel  goes  into  the  real  estate  busi- 


60  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

ness  in  city  and  village,  and  among  country 
farms.  Certain  unhealthy  locations  seem  to  be 
set  apart  for  him  ;  and  whoever  builds  a  house 
on  these  death-lands  has  life  shortened.  Fever 
and  consumption,  and  a  great  variety  of  dis- 
eases, spring  up  out  of  the  deadly  soil,  and  seize 
any  one  found  within  the  fatal  precinct.  Every 
spring  and  autumn  in  New  England  we  have 
frequent  sudden  changes  of  temperature,  each 
one  of  which  sows  the  seeds  of  death  in  cer- 
tain human  bodies;  and  then  the  next  series 
of  severe  changes,  that  occurs  a  few  months 
later,  carries  off  those  enfeebled  bodies.  The 
autumn  reaps  what  the  spring  has  sown ;  or 
the  spring  gathers  what  the  autumn  has  planted. 
We  commonly  say  of  one  whose  disease  is  de- 
veloped one  season,  that  the  next  change  will 
finish  the  work.  So  Death  is  busy,  sowing  and 
reaping  evermore.  A  rise  of  two  or  three  de- 
grees of  cold  above  the  average  winter  weather 
takes  away  a  multitude  of  old  people.  There 
are,  also,  acute  diseases,  whose  office  is  quickly 
fulfilled.  What  is  it  to  lie  down  and  die  ?  It 
is  to  take  a  little  cold,  to  keep  quiet  a  few  days, 


NEAR  HOME.  61 

to  have  a  short  delirium,  and  enter  upon  the 
last  sleep.  Perhaps  there  is  some  sickness  re- 
quiring only  hours  instead  of  days. 

These  diseases  are  so  common,  that  they  are 
unheeded  by  the  multitude.  Men  see  so  much 
of  sickness  and  of  dying,  that  they  are  indif- 
ferent. So  I  have  read,  that,  during  a  long 
siege  at  the  rock  of  Gibraltar,  the  soldiers 
became  so  accustomed  to  danger,  that  they 
would  not  move  from  their  places  when  they 
saw  bomb-shells  smoking  through  the  air,  and 
about  to  burst  at  their  sides :  the  officers  had 
hard  work  to  stir  them  up.  Is  it  needful  for  us 
to  have  warning  voices  from  men,  because  we 
will  not  heed  the  warnings  given  us  by  Death 
himself?  Diseases  and  infirmities  are  warnings. 
Are  they  unheeded  ?  There  is  a  fable,  that  a 
man  once  made  a  contract  with  Death,  that  he 
should  have  three  warnings  before  he  should  be 
borne  away;  and  one  day  he  was  surprised, 
amid  all  his  common  affairs,  by  the  appearance 
of  the  dread  messenger  come  for  him. 

"  How  is  this  ?  "  he  said.  "  You  Agreed  to 
give  me  three  warnings." 


62  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

Death  answered,  "  I  gave  you  the  warnings ; 
but  you  did  not  notice  them." 

There  comes,  to  every  man  and  woman,  a 
time  when  a  part  of  life's  burden  must  be 
definitely  laid  aside  as  too  heavy.  It  is  found 
that  strength  is  failing.  It  is  long  before 
the  fact  is  confessed,  and  long  before  one 
can  settle  down  to  doing  less  than  formerly; 
but  by  and  by  the  new  habits  are  adjusted, 
and  the  remaining  years  are  on  another  plane. 
This  crisis  occurs,  sometimes  early,  sometimes 
late,  often  in  middle  life.  It  is  a  premonition 
of  death.  It  is  the  first  parallel  occupied  in 
the  approach  of  death,  besieging  life's  fortress. 
The  enemy  is  drawing  nearer  and  nearer ;  the 
lines  are  more  circumscribed ;  and  we  shall 
fall  before  him.  Instead  of  complaining  of 
ill  health,  which  is  only  Death  knocking  at 
our  door,  let  us  thank  God  if  he  does  not  break 
in  on  us  without  warning. 

To-day  let  every  man  hear  the  warning,  "  Set 
thy  house  in  order,  for  thou  must  die."  Al- 
ready the   death  of   dear  ones,  or  one's  own 


NEAR  HOME.  63 

bodily  weakness,  says  that  death  is  near.  Fre- 
quent bereavement,  and  the  signs  of  death  hang- 
ing about  our  own  persons,  ought  to  make  us 
amazed  at  ourselves,  —  it  is  madness  unspeak- 
able,—  if  we  defer  taking  decisive  action  in 
preparing  to  meet  God.  It  is  written  that 
"  death  is  always  sudden  to  him  who  has  not 
shaken  off  his  sins." 

How  soon  men  will  speak  of  us  as  already 
dead  !  In  one  of  my  walks  I  met  an  aged  man 
who  had  been  brought  up  some  hundreds  of 
miles  to  the  eastward ;  and  he  had  some  forms 
of  speech  unfamiliar  to  our  New  England  ears. 

"  Who  has  gone  home  to-day  ?  "  he  asked. 

And  I  wondered  what  he  meant.  He  had 
heard  the  tolling  bell,  and  asked,  "Who  has 
gone  home  ?  "  Some  one  had  gone  to  the  nar- 
row house,  and  to  the  everlasting  home,  —  to 
wretchedness  or  joys  eternal.  Gone  home ! 
There  is  no  home  here.  Soon  the  passing  bell 
will  lead  that  man  to  ask  concerning  you,  "Who 
has  gone  home  to-day  ?  "  Where  will  be  your 
home  ?  You  will  go  to  your  own  place.  Soon 
Death  will  put  his  finger  upon  your  ears,  and 


64  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

shut  out  all  sound  of  salvation.  Hear,  then, 
to-day.  "  To  dress  the  soul  for  a  funeral,"  says 
Jeremy  Taylor,  "  is  not  a  work  to  be  despatched 
at  one  meeting."  In  the  midst  of  the  common 
business  of  life,  the  wise  man  will  pause,  and 
make  his  peace  with  God,  and  refuse  to  engage 
in  any  thing  else  till  this  be  done.  So  did 
Montcalm,  at  Quebec,  saying,  — 

"I'll  neither  give  orders,  nor  interfere  any 
further.  I  have  business  to  attend  to  of  greater 
moment  than  your  ruined  garrison  and  this 
wretched  country.  My  time  is  short :  I  shall 
pass  this  night  with  God,  and  prepare  myself 
for  death." 

Do  we  not  all,  in  this  very  hour,  recall  a 
death-bed  scene  in  which  some  loved  one  has 
passed  away  ?  And,  as  we  bring  to  mind  the 
solemn  reflections  of  that  hour,  are  we  not 
ready  to  hear  and  to  heed  the  voice  with  which 
a  dying  wife  once  addressed  him  who  stood  sob- 
bing by  her  side  :  — 

"  My  dear  husband,  live  for  one  thing,  and 
only  one  thing;  just  one  thing,  — the  glory  of 
God,  the  glory  of  God  I " 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  65 


III. 

THE   DARK   DAYS. 

"  Never  have  I  known 
That  the  base  perish:  such  the  gods  protect, 
Delighting  from  the  realms  of  death  to  snatch 
The  crafty  and  the  guileful;  but  the  just 
And  generous  they  in  ruin  always  sink. 
How  for  these  things  shall  we  account,  or  how 
Approve  them?  " 

So  sang  the  Greek  poet.1  And  in  one  of  the 
sweet  songs  of  Israel  we  read,  "For  I  was 
envious  at  the  foolish  when  I  saw  the  prosper- 
ity of  the  wicked.  For  there  are  no  bands  in 
their  death ;  but  their  strength  is  firm.  They 
are  not  in  trouble  as  other  men;  neither  are 
they  plagued  like  other  men.  ...  Is  there 
knowledge  in  the  Most  High?  Behold  these 
are  the  ungodly,  who  prosper  in  the  world ;  they 

1  Sophocles:  Philoctetes. 


66  THE  SILENT  HOTTSE. 

increase  in  riches.  Verily  I  have  cleansed  my 
heart  in  vain,  and  washed  my  hands  in  innocen- 
cy.  .  .  .  When  I  thought  to  know  this,  it  was 
too  painful  for  me,  until  I  went  into  the  sanc- 
tuary of  God;  then  understood  I  their  end." 

We  cannot  justify  the  wa}^s  of  God  to  men 
till  we  go  into  the  sanctuary,  and  there,  under 
the  divine  light  and  guidance,  seek  to  solve  the 
problems  that  perplex  us.  We  ourselves  have 
often  noticed  the  apparent  prosperity  of  men  of 
marked  wickedness ;  and  it  has  not  been  always 
clear  to  us  that  their  death  has  been  in  obe- 
dience to  the  divine  behest,  or  that,  in  dying, 
they  have  had  any  peculiar  sense  of  the  folly 
of  their  lives,  with  compunctions  of  conscience, 
and  decided  apprehensions  of  spiritual  evil 
beyond  the  grave.  We  have  said,  "  There  are 
no  bands  in  their  death."  When,  however,  we 
bring  this  matter  to  the  test  of  the  sanctuary, 
we  understand  better  the  divine  word  and  prov- 
idence. Wicked  men  are  removed  from  the 
world  in  obedience  to  a  divine  law  of  moral 
progress  in  this  universe  ;  and  though  the  most 
die  heedlessly,  as  they  live,  it  is  sometimes  true, 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  67 

that,  in  the  dying-hour,  the  hands  of  the  wicked 
gather  about  them,  and  their  future  life  is  over- 
hung with  gloom.  Not  unfrequently  the  valley 
of  death  appears  very  dark ;  and,  alarmed  by  a 
sense  of  sin  and  vague  terror,  they  confess  the 
vanity  of  all  merely  earthly  pursuits  and  pleas- 
ures. It  is  suitable,  therefore,  to  enter  into  the 
sanctuary,  and  seek  to  know  the  end  of  the 
ungodly.  And  we  shall  need  no  very  laborious 
studies  to  discover,  with  the  writer  of  the  He-' 
brew  song,  that  it  is  a  mistake  to  say  of  wicked 
men,  that  there  are  no  bands  in  their  death. 
Their  dying-days  are  days  of  darkness. 

I  will,  at  first,  ask  how  often  you  have 
thought  of  the  relief  which  this  world  experi- 
ences when  hardened  sinners  are  taken  away  ? 
It  must  be  a  galling  reflection  to  a  dying  man 
to  think,  that,  after  all  his  life-work,  the  most 
intelligent  and  the  best  men  are  glad  to  be  rid 
of  him,  or,  at  the  least,  feel  that  he  is  no  loss, 
that  moral  goodness  will  triumph  the  sooner 
for  his  departure.  It  is,  however,  a  consoling 
thought  to  those  who  have  the  best  interests  of 


68  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

mankind  at  heart,  that  Death  serves  a  very  im- 
portant part  in  removing  from  the  world  those 
who  hinder  the  advancement  of  God's  king- 
dom. If  the  moral  universe  is  to  go  forward, 
some  way  must  be  found,  not  only  for  advan- 
cing holy  souls  to  their  final  reward,  but  also  for 
transplanting  the  wicked  to  their  own  place. 
Death  is,  therefore,  the  messenger  of  God, 
bearing  his  sons  heavenward,  and  also  ridding 
this  world  of  the  most  desperately  depraved 
characters  in  it. 

Before  the  flood,  it  seemed  as  if  wickedness 
was  well-nigh  immortal ;  and  this  world  became 
a  sort  of  hell,  quenched  only  by  opening  the 
windows  of  heaven,  and  breaking  up  the  deep. 
Surpassing  skill  and  power  and  hardihood  in 
sinning  increased  with  every  year  of  their 
lengthened  lives.  If,  also,  we  turn  the  other 
way,  and  look  forward  to  the  millennial  state, 
we  are  apt  to  think,  from  the  hints  of  Scripture, 
that  life  will  be  much  longer  then  than  now. 
This,  in  itself,  will  be  a  certain  preparation  for 
the  falling-away  to  come  thereafter ;  when  long- 
lived  depravity  will   stalk  abroad,  with  guilt 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  69 

like  that  of  the  antideluvians  which  will  then 
be  cut  off  by  a  flood  of  fire.  It  is,  therefore, 
a  mercy  to-day,  which  cuts  off  bad  men  in 
comparative  immaturity.  If,  all  the  uneasy 
schemers  of  past  ages  could  have  lived  till 
now,  their  violence  would  have  made  the  globe 
intolerable.  If  Alexander  the  Great  could  be 
still  mapping  out  new  conquests,  or  if  Charles 
the  Twelfth,  Frederick,  and  Napoleon  were  still 
with  us  in  immortal  vigor ;  and  if  the  worst 
men  now  dead  in  America — Arnolds  and  Burrs 
—  were  still  among  us,  the  earth  might  well 
groan  under  the  heavy  burden.  And  if,  side  by 
side  with  them,  we  should  see  the  men  who 
have  been  valiant  for  truth  in  the  earth,  still 
contending  in  full  vigor,  it  would  seem  that 
their  mighty  warfare  might  jostle  some  of  them 
off  this  planet.  Imagine  Herod  and  John  the 
Baptist,  Paul  and  Nero,  Luther  and  Leo, 
William  the  Silent  and  Charles  the  Fifth,  Crom- 
well and  the  Cavaliers,  contending  for  centuries, 
and  still  in  the  field  of  battle.  If  we  could 
suppose  such  things  to  be,  there  would,  doubt- 
less, be  singular  scenes  on  this  globe,  —  many 


70  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

mighty  men  entombed  in  dungeons,  or  immured 
effectually  under  the  crushing  weight  of  some 
lost  cause.  We  are,  therefore,  to  look  upon 
Death  as  a  great  friend  to  the  world  in  reliev- 
ing society  of  the  worst  men  in  it,  —  vigorous 
villains,  —  conveniently  laying  them  away  in 
cool  graves.  "  These  fierce  passions  of  their 
minds,"  says  an  old  Roman  poet,  "  and  these 
inveterate  contentions,  are  composed  to  rest  by 
the  weight  of  a  little  dust  thrown  upon  them." 
How  often,  in  reading  history,  we  find  an  un- 
looked-for death  relieving  an  oppressed  people, 
and  defeating  plots  which  threaten  the  nations. 
We  are  thus  called,  in  a  moment,  to  laugh  over 
a  new  farce,  instead  of  moaning  over  a  new 
tragedy.  There  is,  to  confess  the  truth,  some- 
thing a  little  comical  in  thinking  of  the  mighty 
John  of  Austria,  dying  in  a  dovecot,  and 
then  his  body  dangling  in  three  bags  from 
troopers'  saddles,  and  dashing  through  the 
country  to  find  a  tomb.  Death  revenged  many 
men,  when  Charles  the  Bold  "  was  found  dead, 
naked  and  deserted,  and  with  his  face  frozen 
into  a  pool  of  water."     Death   handles   kings 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  71 

roughly  when  he  gets  hold  of  them.  And, 
though  their  courtiers  sometimes  prop  them  up 
for  a  few  days,  he  soon  shows  the  sham.  So 
Constantine's  body  was,  after  death,  still  kept 
in  regal  state,  and  his  law  still  went  out  to  the 
people  as  if  he  were  alive ;  but  the  worm  and 
decay  crept  within  the  bright  robes,  and  a  soul- 
less emperor  was  soon  powerless.  The  Peruvian 
incas  were  buried  in  great  pomp ;  and  in  vast 
halls  their  bodies  were  stationed  on  thrones,  in 
solemn  rows,  as  if  they  were  worshipping  in  the 
Court  of  Death ;  but  the  fear  of  them  passed 
away,  and  graceless  robbers  overturned  them  in 
their  hunt  for  treasures.  Many  a  ploughshare 
has  driven  right  on  over  the  hearts  of  mighty 
men.  The  honorable  tombs  of  ancient  cities 
have  fallen  into  the  dust ;  and  there  is  no  man 
to  do  honor  to  forgotten  heroes.  Goethe  saw  an 
Italian  shoemaker  using  the  head  of  the  statue 
of  a  Roman  emperor  for  his  laps  tone.  We  may, 
therefore,  quietly  console  ourselves,  and  think 
contemptuously  of  the  short-lived  threats  of 
wicked  men,  as  Socrates  did,  when  it  was  told 
him,  "  The  thirty  tyrants  have   sentenced  thee 


72  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

to  death." — "And  Nature, them,"  he  answered. 
Even  in  this  life,  the  arms  of  the  wicked  shall  be 
broken.  The  wicked  cease  from  troubling,  and 
the  weary  have  rest ;  the  prisoners  rest  together ; 
they  hear  not  the  voice  of  the  oppressor. 

Allow  me,  for  another  point,  to  call  to  your 
notice  the  fact,  that,  when  they  go  down  to  die, 
the  wicked  are  often  filled  with  strange  alarms 
as  they  remember  their  sins.  It  is  not  said  that 
this  is  usually  the  case ;  but  it  is  not  unfre- 
quently  so.  And  some  degree  of  terror  is  so 
common,  that  it  may  be  suitably  numbered  as 
one  of  the  bands  in  the  death  of  the  wicked. 

It  is,  indeed,  true,  that  the  multitude  do  not 
appear  to  be  disquieted.  A  careless  life  is  often 
closed  by  hard  indifference  upon  the  death-bed. 
Those  who  have  spent  their  lives  in  stifling 
conscience  now  find  it  easy  to  conceal  their 
religious  emotions,  and  die  with  ill-affected 
resignation,  or  sink  sullenly  into  the  grave. 
Some  are  like  stage-players  when  the  curtain 
drops.  "  Have  I  played  well  my  part  ?  "  asked 
the  dying  Augustus.      "  Then   give    me    your 


THE  DARK  DA  VS.  73 

applause."  "  Let  down  the  curtain  :  the  farce 
is  over,"  said  the  dying  Rabelais.  High  over 
the  cemeteries,  in  the  great  French  Revolu- 
tion, hung  the  motto,  "  Here  is  eternal  sleep." 
"Sprinkle  me  with  perfumes,  crown  me  with 
flowers,  that  I  may  thus  enter  upon  eternal 
sleep,"  said  the  dying  Mirabeau.  When  Dan- 
ton  stood  upon  the  scaffold,  his  self-conceit  did 
not  slink  away  even  at  the  fatal  block :  "  Thou 
wilt  show  my  head  to  the  people.  It  is  worth 
showing."  When  Charles  the  Second  of  Eng- 
land was  dying,  —  a  bad  Protestant  and  good 
Catholic,  —  he  did  not  forget  that  native  polite- 
ness and  lightness  which  won  him  the  title 
"  Merry  Monarch,"  which  jested  even  in  the 
presence  of  death.  He  could  not  leave  the 
world  without  an  apology  to  those  around  him 
for  the  trouble  he  had  made  them ;  saying  to 
those  who  had  waited  long,  that  he  had  been 
a  most  unconscionable  time  dying,  but  hoped 
they  would  excuse  it.  There  is,  with  venerable 
though  less  illustrious  authority,  an  old  report, 
that,  when  Henry  the  Eighth  was  given  over  by 
the  physicians,  he  called  for  a  glass  of  sack,  and, 


74  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

after  lie  had  finished  it,  said  in  a  jest,  "  All's 
gone,  all's  gone,"  —  and  died.  The  first  Darius 
thought  it  an  epitaph  worthy  of  himself:  UI 
could  drink  a  great  deal  of  wine,  and  bore  it 
well."  The  Roman  Emperor  Vitellius,  on  the 
approach  of  death,  drank  himself  drunk.  So 
men  have  died  like  brutes.  Nameless  men  in 
every  generation  go  down  to  their  graves  with- 
out apparent  trepidation.  Atheists  have  plead- 
ed for  a  life  of  infamy,  and  a  death  that  asks 
no  question.  De  St.  Evremond,  who  made 
the  pursuit  of  pleasure  his  chief  study  for  fifty 
years,  was  asked  in  the  dying-hour  if  he  would 
"  have  a  priest  to  reconcile  him  with  "  —  "  I 
lost  my  stomach,  I'd  fain  be  reconciled  with  it," 
was  his  quick  answer.  So  hardened  rogues  jest 
under  the  gallows.  Let  it  not  be  supposed, 
however,  that  indifference  or  jocularity  in  the 
presence  of  death  is  a  sign  that  one's  spirit- 
ual state  is  what  it  should  be.  It  is,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  mere  proof  of  God's  permission 
that  the  moral  stupor  of  life  should  be  unshocked 
by  death.  Those  who  reject  God  to-day  may 
not  care  any  thing  more  for  Him  when  they 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  75 

come  to  die.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  meet  those 
who  are  physically  insensible  to  danger.  Their 
animal  constitutions  are  so  vigorous  that  their 
nerves  never  fail.  They  will  stand  on  the  deck 
when  the  ship  is  about  to  go  down,  with  as  little 
mental  emotion  as  they  would  experience  in 
taking  a  salt  water  bath  on  a  beach.  I  have 
known  such  men.  It  is  not  so  much  courage  as 
stupidity.  They  are  more  calm  than  bullocks 
would  be  under  the  circumstances,  because  they 
have  been  trained  to  more  self-control.  And  we 
may  not  be  surprised  when  they  die,  as  they  have 
lived,  without  a  sense  of  sin.  Perhaps  their 
consciousness  of  guilt  was  quenched  years  be- 
fore ;  and  they  are  calm  now,  in  dying,  because 
they  have  been  already  so  long  unanimated  by 
spiritual  life.  It  is  the  quiet  of  a  diseased  body 
just  about  to  slough  itself  off  from  the^  dead 
soul.  "  With  this  penalty  is  a  sinner  punished," 
says  Augustine,  "  that,  when  he  dieth  he  forget- 
eth  himself,  who,  in  his  lifetime,  thought  not 
upon  God."  This  accounts  for  the  fact  which 
we  often  find  in  our  common  life,  where  impeni- 
tent men  die  so  contentedly,  that  it  is  asked, 


76  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

"  Was  not  this\  Christian's  death  ?  "  Domestic 
friends  are  comforted  by  it ;  and  unbelief  takes 
new  courage. 

But  we  have  abundant  evidence  that  this  is, 
not  unfrequently,  far  otherwise.  Whenever 
the  stupor  induced  by  disease  allows  one  to 
realize  that  it  is  the  death-bed  to  which  he  has 
come  at  last,  it  is  not  very  uncommon  to  find 
men  alarmed.  Sometimes,  long  before  the  hour 
comes,  a  man  starts  with  a  sudden  vision  of 
his  old  sins,  and  for  a  little  while  has  sober 
thoughts,  as  if  fearing  to  fall  at  once  into  the 
hands  of  Infinite  Holiness  and  Justice  Im- 
mutable. "When  one  supposes  himself,''  says 
Plato,  "  near  the  point  of  death,  there  enter  into 
his  soul  fear  and  anxieties  respecting  things 
before  unheeded;  for  then  the  old  traditions 
concerning  Hades — how  those  who  in  this  life 
have  been  guilty  of  wrong  must  there  suffer 
the  penalty  of  their  crimes  —  torment  his  soul. 
He  looks  back  upon  his  past  life,  and  if  he 
finds  in  the  record  many  sins,  like  one  start- 
ing from  a  frightful  dream,  he  is  terrified,  and 
filled  with   foreboding  fears."     That  was   the 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  77 

way  wicked  Greeks  felt  in  view  of  death, 
twenty-three  hundred  years  ago.  We  have, 
besides  this  ancient  witness,  the  words  of  a 
pastor  in  France,  a  few  generations  since,  whose 
observation  of  the  manner  in  which  his  gay 
countrymen  died  led  him  to  say,  "  The  moment 
of  death  is  a  fatal  period,  in  which  are  united 
the  excesses  of  our  youth,  the  distractions  of 
our  manhood,  the  avarice  of  our  old  age.  Our 
pride,  our  ambition,  our  impurity,  our  covetous- 
ness,  our  treacheries,  our  perjuries,  our  calum- 
nies, our  blasphemies,  our  lukewarmness,  our 
profanations,  all  these  crimes  will"  [over  our 
death-beds]  "  form  one  black  cloud,  heavy,  and 
hanging  ready  to  burst  on  our  heads."  A  pas- 
tor in  Old  England,  in  the  time  of  Cromwell, 
has  also  told  us  how  the  people  of  his  pastor- 
ate were  affected  by  their  coming  to  the  verge 
of  life.  M  There  are,"  he  says,  "  few  of  the 
stoutest  hearts  but  will  hear  us  on  their  death- 
beds, though  they  scorned  us  before.  They 
will  then  be  tame  as  lambs,  who  were  before  as 
untractable  as  madmen.  I  find  not  one  in  ten 
of  the  most  obstinate,  scornful  wretches  in  the 


78  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

parish,  but,  when  they  come  to  die,  will  humble 
themselves,  confess  their  faults,  seem  penitent, 
and  promise,  if  they  should  recover,  to  reform 
their  lives.  With  what  resolution  will  the 
worst  of  them  seem  to  cast  away  their  sins, 
exclaim  against  their  follies  and  the  vanities  of 
the  world  when  they  see  that  death  is  in  earnest 
with  them  !  "  Whenever  or  wherever  we  open 
the  pages  of  history,  we  find  the  same  story. 
Perhaps  our  attention  is  called  by  some  one  to 
"  Nero,  crying  or  creeping  timorously  to  his 
death; "  or,  again,  one  points  us  to  "  Judas  pale 
and  trembling,  full  of  anguish,  sorrow,  and 
despair ; "  or  we  are  told  to  listen  to  "  the 
groanings  and  intolerable  agonies  of  Herod." 
William  the  Conqueror  had  no  courage  when 
he  came  upon  his  dying-bed.  "  Laden  with 
many  and  grievous  sins,"  he  exclaimed,  "  I 
tremble ;  and,  being  ready  to  be  taken  soon  into 
the  terrible  examination  of  God,  I  am  ignorant 
what  I  should  do.  I  have  been  brought  up  in 
feats  of  arms  from  my  childhood ;  I  am  greatly 
polluted  with  effusion  of  much  blood ;  I  can 
by  no  means  number  the  evils  I  have  done  these 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  79 

sixty-four  years,  for  which  I  am  now  constrained, 
without  stay,  to  render  an  account  to  the  Just 
Judge." 

In  this  hand-to-hand  struggle  with  death,  the 
stoutest  unbelievers  have  often  given  way,  and 
have  made  some  outcry  like  that  of  the  dying 
apostate  Julian,  "  O  Galilean !  thou  hast  con- 
quered." Voltaire  was  shaken  in  his  unbelief; 
and  Paine  died  in  mental  terror.  "  If  there  is 
a  God,"  said  an  English  atheist  in  dying,  —  "if 
there  is  a  God,  I  desire  that  He  may  have  mercy 
on  me."  "  These  great  realities,"  wrote  a 
young  nobleman,  'falling  by  the  hand  of  dis- 
ease, "  which,  in  the  hours  of  mirth  and  vanity, 
I  have  treated  as  phantoms,  as  the  idle  dreams 
of  superstitious  beings,  —  these  start  forth,  and 
dare  me  now  in  their  most  terrible  demonstra- 
tion. My  awakened  conscience  feels  something 
of  that  eternal  vengeance  I  have  often  defied." 
"  That  there  is  a  God,  I  know,"  said  the  dying 
unbeliever,  "because  I  continually  feel  the 
effects  of  His  wrath ;  that  there  is  a  hell,  I  am 
equally  certain,  having  received  an  earnest  of 
my  inheritance  there  already  in  my  heart ;  that 


80  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

there  is  a  natural  conscience,  I  now  feel  with 
horror  and  amazement,  being  continually  up- 
braided by  it  with  my  impieties,  and  all  my 
sins  are  brought  to  my  remembrance." 

It  is  not  unlikely,  therefore,  that  when  we 
ourselves  approach  the  grave,  —  if  we  are  con- 
scious that  all  earthly  things  are  fading  from 
sight,  —  the  sense  of  sin  may  become  more  and 
more  vivid,  and  more  and  more  terrible  to 
bear,  unless  we  have  found  faith  in  Christ  as 
our  personal  Redeemer.  The  experience  of 
all  the  ages  shows,  that,  according  to  the 
death-bed  test,  the  only  thing  worth  living  for 
is  to  be  a  Christian.  In  hours  of  health,  we 
know  this  to  be  true ;  and  it  will  be  indorsed 
and  made  emphatic  in  our  last  moments, 
though  it  be  then  too  late  for  normal  and 
healthful  spiritual  action. 

It  is  time,  however,  to  turn  to  another  point. 
There  is  often,  in  the  dying-hour,  a  free  con- 
fession of  the  vanity  of  merely  earthly  pursuits 
and  pleasures. 

Men  live  merrily  in  full  sight  of  others  dying 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  81 

around  them  ;  and  they  can  hardly  pause  for 
the  funeral.  Though  the  earth  be  dark  with 
the  gloomy  reign  of  death,  men  kindle  festive 
lights,  and  crowd  around  them,  till  their  own 
turn  comes  to  be  snatched  away.  As,  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  it  grew  to  be  a  custom  among 
certain  people  in  England  and  France  to  enter 
the  catacombs,  or  to  go  elsewhere  among  the 
tombs,  and  hang  up  a  skeleton  for  a  banner, 
and  dance  under  it,  naming  their  grim  amuse- 
ment "  The  Dance  of  Death :  "  so  there  are 
to-day,  among  us,  myriads  whose  merriment 
in  a  dying  world  seems  as  unsuitable  as  that 
of  the  half-savage  rioters  of  Gaul  or  Britain 
four  hundred  years  ago. 

"  The  noisy  world  in  masquerade 
Forgets  the  grave,  the  worm,  the  shade." 

The  sight  of  the  cemetery,  or  the  passing 
funeral-train,  commonly  calls  forth  no  thought 
of  our  own  mortality,  unless  some  acquaintance 
or  friend  is  buried,  and  not  always  then. 

But  when  careless  men  of  business,  and  of 
high   ambitions   and  eager  pleasures,  come  to 

G 


82  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

take  their  own  turn  at  dying,  they  are  some- 
times arrant  cowards  as  any.  Have  you  not 
seen  men  throwing  up  their  treasures,  their 
power,  their  pleasures,  calling  them  all  mere 
"  vanity,"  when  they  stand  upon  the  edge  of 
the  grave  ? 

Riches  are  a  vain  thing  for  safety  when  the 
attack  of  the  Pale  Horse  is  imminent.  Wealth 
cannot  resist  the  hand  of  disease.  The  gilded 
vehicle  will  stop  at  the  grave.  The  first  use 
of  money  which  was  ever  entered  upon  earthly 
records  was  the  purchase  of  a  burial-place. 
"  The  rich,"  says  Augustine,  "  are  like  beasts 
of  burden,  carrying  treasure  all  day,  and  at 
the  night  of  death  unladen:  they  carry  to 
their  graves  only  the  bruises  and  marks  of 
their  toil."  Thomas  Boston  writes,  "  This 
world  is  a  great  inn  on  the  road  to  eternity, 
to  which  thou  art  travelling.  Thou  art  at- 
tended by  these  things,  as  servants  belonging 
to  the  inn  where  thou  lodgest :  they  wait  upon 
thee  while  thou  art  there;  and,  when  thou 
goest  away,  they  will  convoy  thee  to  the  door. 
But  they  are  not  thine :  they  will  not  go  away 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  83 

with  thee,  but  return  to  wait  on  other  stran- 
gers, as  they  did  on  thee."  Cortes,  having 
ravaged  Mexico,  on  fleeing  the  city  had  to 
leave  vast  treasure  on  the  floor  of  his  late 
lodging-place :  so  the  man  of  wealth,  called 
into  eternity,  suddenly  quits  his  grasp,  drops 
his  sovereigns  and  crowns,  and  is  off  in  haste. 
When  the  sweat-drops  of  the  last  agony  fall 
on  the  coin,  the  shining  turns  to  rust,  the 
heaps  look  small.  The  greatness  of  dust  piled 
up  in  the  coffer  looks  mean  when  its  owner's 
dust  is  about  to  be  piled  up  in  the  coffin. 
M  How  much  did  he  leave  ?  "  asked  my  neigh- 
bor concerning  a  man  just  dead,  who  had  been 
taxed  for  six  hundred  thousand  dollars.  "  He 
left  every  dollar,"  was  the  answer.  "  Two 
hundred  thousand  pounds,"  said  Erskine,  —  "  a 
pretty  sum  to  begin  the  next  world  with !  " 
So  feels  the  victim  with  no  further  use  for 
earthly  currency.  "  Why,"  said  the  dying 
Rachel,  as  she  gazed  on  the  gifts  of  many 
princes,  —  "  why  have  I  to  part  with  all 
these  so  soon  ?  "  Think  not,  my  friends,  to 
take    comfort  in   wearing   pearls  to   the    edge 


84  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

of  the  grave,  since  the  tears  of  penitence  are 
more  precious  than  pearls  in  that  hour.  The 
Cardinal  Mazarin,  having  two  months  to  live, 
was  found,  with  night-cap  and  dressing-gown, 
tottering  through  his  gallery,  pointing  to  his 
pictures,  and  crying,  "  Must  I  quit  all  these  ?  " 
And  he  asked,  "  Oh,  my  poor  soul !  what  will 
become  of  thee  ?  Whither  wilt  thou  go  ?  " 
But,  when  the  last  hour  came,  he  was  dressed 
and  painted,  and  had  courtiers  pass  before 
him  ;  and  he  died  with  that  kind  of  cards  in 
his  hands  which  seems  most  fit  if  one  thinks 
of  visiting  at  Satan's  gate.  How  vain  is  the 
possession  of  all  earthly  treasure  when  the 
hour  of  parting  comes  ! 

"  Why  dost  thou  heap  up  wealth  which  thou  must  quit, 
Or,  what  is  worse,  be  left  by  it? 
Why  dost  thou  load  thyself  when  thou'rt  to  fly, 
O  man  !  ordained  to  die  ? 

Why  dost  thou  build  up  stately  rooms  on  high,  — 
Thou  who  art  under  ground  to  lie? 
Thou  sowest  and  plantest,  but  no  fruit  must  see  ; 
For  Death,  alas  !  is  reaping  thee." 

And  how  vain  a  thing  is  the  possession  of  all 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  85 

earthly  power,  when  one  is  about  to  come  under 
the  reign  of  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come. 
The  dying  Niel  grasped  the  badge  of  the 
Marshal  of  France,  and  said,  "  Alas  !  this  is  a 
mighty  fine  thing  in  this  country;  but  I  am 
going  to  a  country  where  it  will  be  of  no  use  to 
me."  These  are  the  words  of  Warwick  the 
king-maker :  — 

"  Lo!  now,  my  glory  smeared  in  dust  and  blood! 
My  parks,  my  walks,  my  manors  that  I  had, 
Even  now  forsake  me ;  and  of  all  my  lands 
Is  nothing  left  me  but  my  body's  length. 
Why,  what  is  pomp,  rule,  reign,  but  earth  and  dust? 
And,  live  we  how  we  can,  yet  die  we  must." 

It  is  a  Spanish  king  dying,  who  says,  "  What 
doth  all  my  glory  profit,  but  that  I  have  so 
much  the  more  torment  in  my  death ? "  "I  am 
already  nothing,"  said  Charles  the  Second  of 
Spain,  bursting  into  tears  as  he  lay  upon  his 
dying-bed,  tormented  by  the  politicians  who 
were  henceforth  to  handle  the  kingdom.  How 
soon  is  the  man,  whose  word  is  every  thing, 
made  nothing  by  entering  the  tomb.  Wolsey, 
for  several  years  before  he  died,  had  been  pre- 


86  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

paring  a  magnificent  monument  of  brass  for 
himself  by  an  Italian  artist :  but  lie  died  dis- 
honored ;  and  his  grave  is  now  unknown.  The 
king  took  the  fittest  part  of  the  monument,  and 
called  it  his  own.  After  many  years  had  passed, 
one  man  rose  in  England,  who  sought  to  honor 
the  memory  of  Wolsey  by  furnishing  tools  and 
men  to  hunt  for  his  remains;  but,  when  he 
asked  that  others  would  contribute  to  bear  part 
of  the  expense,  only  one  person  could  be  found 
in  all  the  kingdom,  and  he  was  willing  to  give 
twelvepence  to  the  project.  Vanity  of  vani- 
ties! So  true  are  the  words  of  the  Hebrew 
song :  "  Like  sheep  they  are  laid  in  the  grave  ; 
death  shall  feed  on  them."  It  was  a  Roman 
emperor  who  said,  "  I  have  been  all ;  and  all  is 
nothing."  On  the  morning  before  Prince  Tal- 
leyrand died,  there  was  found  upon  his  table, 
near  the  bedside,  a  paper  with  these  words: 
"  The  whole  eighty-three  years  passed  away, 
what  cares !  what  agitation  !  what  anxieties  ! 
what  sad  complication  !  And  all  without  other 
result  except  great  fatigue  of  body  and  mind, 
and  disgust  with  regard  to  the  past,  and  a  pro- 


THE  DARK  DAYS. 

found  sentiment  of  discouragement  and  despair 
with  regard  to  the  future." 

"  Know,"  says  the  Koran,  "  that  this  present 
life  is  only  a  toy  and  a  vain  amusement."  The 
heart  is  vacant  when  it  has  the  whole  world  in 
it.  Men  of  wealth  and  power,  and  men  of 
pleasure,  rarely  speak  well  of  this  world  when 
they  leave  it.  One  whom  men  called  great, 
when  he  had  lost  the  power  of  speech,  upon  his 
death-bed  drew  upon  a  sheet  of  paper  two  large 
ciphers  to  indicate  that  all  of  earth  was  merely 
—  nothing,  nothing.  In  such  days  of  grief,  we 
appreciate  the  old  poet,  who  summed  up  the 
exceeding  glory  of  this  world  as  a  "  nothing  be- 
tween two  dishes ;  "  and  we  shame  ourselves  for 
having  tried  so  long  to  get  the  cover  off.  Then 
it  is  that  we  compare  pottage  and  the  birth- 
right, the  plumes  of  earth  and  the  wings  of 
angels.  Oh,  my  friends,  will  you  not  abandon 
the  world  before  the  world  abandons  you  ? 

I  wish  it  were  possible,  in  some  way,  for  us 
to  know  how  lonely  will  be  the  passage  of  the 
human  so  id  from  its  earthly  abode.     It  is  this 


88  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

sense  of  loneliness  which  makes  it  easy  for  one 
to  cry  out,  confessing  his  sins,  as  if  he  were 
already  before  God,  and  to  stand  appalled  in 
that  presence  which  removes  him  from  all  he 
has  clung  to  —  every  prop  giving  way  in  that 
hour.  In  this  life,  we  are  so  crowded  with 
company,  and  we  are  so  engrossed  with  the 
mad  strife  for  riches  and  power  and  pleas- 
ure, that  we  think  little  about  the  solitary 
journey  each  one  of  our  souls  is  soon  to  make, 
as  we  quit  all  the  earthly  and  move  forward 
into  the  untried  regions  of  eternity.  In  the 
very  midst  of  all  our  schemes,  we  must  soon 
stop  to  lie  down  and  die  ;  and,  when  we  do  stop, 
we  shall  be  left  out  of  the  great  company  with 
whom  we  are  moving  on  the  track  of  traffic. 
So  I  have  read1  that  the  Muslims,  when  they 
travel  in  the  desert,  always  carry  with  them 
their  grave-linen ;  and  it  is  often  needed.  For 
they  sink  suddenly  under  deadly  disease,  or 
they  are  overcome  by  their  privations;  and,  in 
the  dangerous  journey,  their  companions  cannot 
wait  for  them  to  die  or  to  recover.     He,  there- 

1  Lane's  Egypt. 


THE  DARK  DAYS.  89 

fore,  who  falls  out  of  the  caravan  by  sickness, 
is  often  left  to  die  alone,  and  to  bury  himself. 
He  performs  his  ablutions  with  sand,  and  digs  a 
trench  in  the  treacherous  floor  of  the  desert : 
he  covers  himself  all  over,  except  his  face,  and 
then  he  waits  for  death.  But  he  is  no  more 
lonely  in  the  dying-hour  than  if  he  were  to  die 
amid  a  crowd  of  mourning  friends ;  for  with 
each  one,  in  dying,  there  comes  the  moment 
when  the  last  farewell  is  uttered.  The  lips  are 
pressed,  and  the  hand  is  touched,  for  the  last 
time  ;  the  departing  spirit  turns  away  from  the 
visions  of  this  world,  and  the  eye  fastens  on 
the  unseen ;  and  henceforth  the  dying  man  is 
as  lonely,  so  far  as  concerns  earthly  company, 
as  if  he  were  lying  alone  on  the  great  plains  of 
the  distant  West,  or  perishing  amid  the  ice-floes 
of  the  North,  or  dying  on  a  white  reef  amid 
the  dashing  surf  of  the  South  Sea,  or  going 
down  in  a  foundered  boat  alone  in  mid-ocean. 
Whether  one  falls  in  the  thick  of  fight,  amid 
the  roar  of  the  battle-field  and  the  movement 
of  armies,  or  drops  upon  the  crowded  street,  or 
breathes  his  last  in  some  unknown  hovel,  —  he 


90  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

is  alone  when  he  dies.  Do  you  never  think  to 
commiserate  the  fate  of  the  strangers  who  die, 
almost  every  day,  in  our  large  cities?  More 
than  three  hundred  unknown  persons  die  in 
New  York  every  year.  But  these  are  no  more 
lonely  in  the  last  struggling,  when  Death  gains 
the  mastery,  than  you  and  I  shall  be  when  we 
turn  our  faces  from  this  world  to  enter  the 
unseen.  The  loneliness  of  death  to  each  one 
who  passes  through  it  is  calculated  to  awaken 
thoughtfulness  on  the  part  of  those  who  mer- 
rily live  in  crowds.  The  sensibilities  of  the 
most  unheeding  must  be  awakened  by  the  near 
contemplation  of  the  solitude  of  the  soul  in  the 
hour  of  its  last  mortal  agony.  I  would,  there- 
fore, that  we  "might  keep  this  in  mind;  that  we 
may  be  able  to  say  in  that  dread  moment,  "  I 
am  not  alone,  because  the  Father  is  with  me." 

"  Gay  wanderer  in  a  homeless  world, 
Poor  pilgrim  to  a  dusty  bier, 
On  Time's  great  cycle  darkly  hurled 
From  year  to  year, 
See  in  the  sky  these  words  unfurled  : 
*  Thy  home  is  here \>V 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  91 


IV. 
SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT. 

The  Holy  Family,  upon  their  flight  into 
Egypt,  were  attacked  by  two  robbers.  One, 
says  the  legend,  relented,  and  bribed  the  other 
to  spare  Jesus  and  his  parents ;  and  he  hid 
them  in  a  rocky  cave  that  night.  Mary  prom- 
ised this  man  final  pardon.  He  was  the  peni- 
tent thief  to  whom,  when  they  were  dying  upon 
the  cross  together,  Jesus  said,  "  This  day  shalt 
thou  be  with  me  in  paradise."  We  need  not, 
however,  resort  to  old  story  to  account  for  the 
pardon  of  the  penitent.  The  man  was  forgiven 
upon  the  same  ground  that  we  are  now,  —  his 
repentance  and  faith.  He  believed  in  Christ 
when  almost  all  the  world  rejected  him.  The 
evangelist  does  not  intimate  that  he  had  delib- 
erately put  off  the  day  of  repentance,  planning 
to  leave  it  till  he  should  come  to  die,  willing  to 


92  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

risk  it.  The  emphasis  of  the  case  is  not  that 
the  man  was  dying,  but  that  he  had  great  faith 
in  Christ,  who  was  at  that  moment  crucified 
beside  him  as  an  impostor.  This  example  gives 
no  countenance  to  those  who  are  crowding  off 
the  hour  of  their  turning  to  God,  hoping  for 
mercy  at  last,  after  they  have  despised  the 
mercy  for  years.  There  is,  perhaps,  no  more 
abused  passage  in  the  Bible  than  this.1  This 
poor  thief  is  clung  to  by  those  who  reject  Jesus, 
dying  at  his  side. 

Men  commonly  think  that  it  will  be  time 
enough  to  repent  when  they  are  about  to  die. 
The  grand  business  of  life  is  left  to  be  done  in 
the  last  moments.  The  guilty  and  condemned 
have  a  reprieve  of  a  few  days  to  see  if  they 
will  repent  before  the  uncertain  hour  of  execu- 
tion ;  but  they  defer  that  for  which  their  lives 
were  lengthened,  and  think  they  will  have  time 
enough  when  they  ascend  the  scaffold. 

No  wonder  is  it  that  this  is  felt  by  some  to 
be  a  most  unmanly  course.  Do  we  only  just 
begin  to  think  upon  living  to  God  when  life  is 

i  Luke  xxiii.  42,  43. 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  93 

spent  ?  Do  we  renounce  the  world  only  when 
the  world  is  about  to  shake  us  off  ?  Some  most 
honorable  minds,  therefore,  declare  it  to  be  an 
insult  to  God  to  seek  his  grace  in  the  dying- 
hour,  after  having  deliberately  despised  it  all 
one's  lifetime.  But  the  insult  is  in  the  wicked 
life,  not  in  the  penitent  death.  "I  would 
rather  be  lost,"  said  one  pastor,  "  than  become 
a  Christian  on  my  death-bed."  But,  when  he 
said  that,  he  little  thought  what  it  is  to  be  lost. 
"  I  would  rather  continue  to  sin  in  the  future 
than  to  repent  in  the  last  moment  in  which  I 
may  turn  to  God  :  "  he  would  not  say  that.  It 
is  a  most  dastardly  deed  to  live  fighting  against 
God,  expecting  to  turn  to  him  with  a  cry  .for 
pardon  when  the  end  of  life  approaches.  Said 
a  dying  soldier  to  his  mother,  "  If  I  live  to  get 
well,  I  will  be  a  Christian ;  but  I  will  not  throw 
the  fag-end  of  my  life  in  the  face  of  the  Al- 
mighty." And  then  he  died.  In  a  storm  at 
sea,  when  all  hope  was  gone,  the  sailors  began 
to  cry  to  God.  But  one  wicked  fellow  would 
not  pray.  "  No,  no  !  "  said  he.  "  I  must  not 
pray.     I  have  lived  in  sin  till  now.     I  dare  not 


94  THE  SILENT  HOUSE.    v 

insult  my  Maker  by  offering  him  the  very  last 
days  of  my  miserable  life.  If  I  had  the  prospect 
of  more  years  ahead,  I  would  do  it ;  but  now  it 
is  too  late.  I  should  have  no  confidence  in  my 
repentance  at  this  late  hour."  When,  however, 
the  peril  had  passed,  all  the  rest  were  wild  in 
revelry ;  but  he  turned  with  all  his  heart  to  the 
Saviour  of  men.  The  word  of  God  gives  no 
countenance  to  this  sentiment  of  false  manli- 
ness, which  bids  one  continue  impenitent  another 
moment.  The  sin  is  in  continuing  to  sin.  It  is 
no  sin  to  repent,  even  on  the  death-bed.  The 
aggravated  insult  to  God  lies  far  back,  behind 
the  dying-pillow.  To  contend  against  God  in 
health  is  the  great  wickedness.  If  there  be  a 
sense  of  the  guilt  of  this  course,  and  a  disposi- 
tion to  go  to  Christ  in  the  last  moment,  it  ought 
to  be  encouraged.  The  dying  thief  may  be 
suitably  appealed  to  as  one  who  had  great  and 
decisive  faith  in  the  very  last  act  of  life.  u  The 
whole  Bible  gives  but  one  saving  case ;  one, 
that  none  might  despair :  only  one,  that  none 
might  presume." 

We  should,  on  this  account,  deal  faithfully 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  95 

with  those  who  are  about  to  die.  It  is  with 
them  now  or  never.  So  long  as  strength 
remains  to  turn  the  eye  to  Christ,  we  are  to  say, 
"Look  and  live."  So  Moses  lifted  up  the  ser- 
pent in  the  wilderness,  that  the  dying  might 
turn  the  eye  of  faith  that  way.  If  we  hesitate 
to  alarm  their  false  security,  seeking  to  turn 
them  heavenward,  they  in  a  moment  slip  from 
our  grasp,  and  the  opportunity  is  gone  by  for- 
ever. We  are  to  deal  boldly,  as  for  eternity, 
and  faithfully,  as  with  our  own  souls.  Yet 
persons  are  sometimes  sick  a  year  or  two  with  a 
lingering  disease ;  and,  only  a  few  hours  before 
they  die,  they  express  an  expectation  to  get 
well :  and  never  one  word  is  said  to  them  by 
their  dearest  friends  about  the  nearness  of 
eternal  scenes.  Better  is  it  to  shock  the  sense 
of  false  peace  before  it  be  too  late ;  better  one 
faithful  word  which  may  make  entrance  for 
faith  in  God  than  to  allow  the  shock  to  come, 
as  come  it  must,  when  the  door  of  mercy  is 
shut.  The  decisive  words  of  a  loving  heart  are 
a  less  sad  surprise  than  will  be  the  sight  of  the 
world  of  woe.     I  once  heard  one  of  the  most 


96  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

tender  and  affectionate  women  I  ever  knew 
speak  words  which  shocked  me  to  a  friend 
who  had  only  a  few  weeks  to  live ;  but  those 
words  led  the  man  to  live  forever. 

It  is  possible  to  exercise  true  repentance 
and  faith  upon  the  death-bed;  but  it  is  not 
probable  that  this  step  will  be  taken,  or  so 
taken  as  to  give  much  assurance  that  all  is 
well.  Great  disappointment  is  likely  to  over- 
take those  who  defer  contrition  for  sin,  and 
belief  in  Christ,  till  the  last  moment.  The  con- 
ditions of  the  death-bed  are  unfavorable  for 
being  born  again,  —  so  unfavorable,  that  it  is 
impossible  to  count  upon  it;  and  the  chances 
are  greatly  against  it. 

Test  this  matter,  for  example,  by  what  we 
call  sudden  death.  Deaths  which  seem  sudden 
to  us  differ  less  than  might  be  supposed  from 
death  after  some  long  sickness,  and  are,  perhaps, 
little  more  surprising  to  those  who  die,  since 
the  moment  when  one  first  knows  that  he  is  to 
die  always  comes  unlooked  for.  Again,  these 
deaths  are  commonly  supposed  to  be  without 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  97 

warning,  and  without  time  for  decisive  spiritual 
action.  I  believe  this  to  be  a  mistake.  Such 
facts  as  we  know  show  that  the  mind  can  act 
more  quickly  than  any  physical  agent  which 
destroys  life.  Charles  the  Twelfth  put  forth  the 
volition  to  grasp  his  sword-hilt  between  the 
time  when  a  small  cannon-shot  struck  his  tem- 
ple, —  crashing  his  brain,  —  and  the  cessation  of 
the  power  to  will.  Men  have,  as  we  believe, 
truly  turned  to  God  when  they  were  drowning  ; 
their  restored  life  has  been  fully  given  up  to 
Him.  The  visions  which  the  drowning  some- 
times have  of  their  past  lives  show  how  quickly 
the  mind  acts.  The  divine  grace  may  act  more 
quickly  than  the  lightning-stroke.  We  are  not 
to  speak  of  those  whose  deaths  seem  sudden  to 
us  as  dying  unwarned ;  besides  the  warning 
they  have  certainly  had  all  their  lives,  they  may 
have  warning  enough  in  the  instant  of  death. 
The  danger  is,  that  those  who  do  not  repent 
under  the  admonitions  of  life  will  not  repent 
in  the  moment  when  the  soul  takes  its  flight. 
When  a  gambler  loses  his  head  by  a  cannon- 
ball,  and  the  cards  in  his  hat  fly  in  all  directions, 
7 


98  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

we  are  not  apt  to  think  that  any  holy  volition 
is  actually  put  forth ;  but  when  his  companion 
at  the  gun,  losing  his  life  by  the  same  shot, 
lives  a  moment,  takes  his  Bible  from  his  pocket, 
and  sends  a  triumphant  Christian  message  to 
his  wife,  we  believe  that  the  volitions  of  the 
soul  do  not  need  long  time  to  show  their  charac- 
ter. A  soldier  in  the  Eighty-sixth  Illinois  said 
that  he  obtained  a  hope  in  Christ  in  the  battle 
of  Chickamauga.  I  watched  over  a  dying  boy 
at  Antietam ;  and  in  his  terrible  agony  he  was 
glad  to  acknowledge  Christ,  and  send  a  message 
to  an  impenitent  mother  to  seek  the  Saviour. 
Bibles  and  prayer-books  were  found  scattered 
where  the  wounded  and  dying  were  thickest  at 
Gettysburg.  Angels  of  mercy  and  the  Spirit  of 
God  are  busy  upon  battle-fields ;  and  the  Lord 
looketh  down  from  the  height  of  his  sanctuary 
to  hear  the  groaning  of  the  prisoner,  and  to 
loose  those  who  are  appointed  to  death.  Prison- 
houses  and  hospitals  have  caused  many  to  think 
of  early  instruction,  and  to  listen  to  the  voice 
of  the  Son  of  man.  But  it  is  true,  upon  the 
other  hand,  that  there   are  so  many  things  to 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  99 

take  off  the  mind  upon  battle-fields  and  in 
hospitals,  that  the  men  are  likely  to  die  without 
hope.  They  are  not  always  made  aware  that 
they  are  near  to  death.  Old  soldiers  have  re- 
marked, that  there  is  no  place  where  there  is  so 
little  thought  of  dying  as  in  the  midst  of  battle, 
and  the  movements  of  armies,  and  the  excite- 
ments of  new  hospitals.  Wherever  men  are 
when  they  depart,  heedless  dying  is  apt  to 
follow  heedless  living;  and,  while  men  may 
repent  in  a  moment,  it  is  not  likely  that  many 
will  do  it.  It  is  an  appalling  thought  that  an 
impenitent  man  may  be  fixed  in  his  eternal 
abode  in  any  hour. 

If  we  turn  from  cases  of  almost  instantane- 
ous death,  and  look  upon  those  patients  who  are 
carried  off  by  acute  diseases,  after  a  few  days 
or  weeks  of  sickness,  we  find  that  those  dis- 
eases approach  so  stealthily  as  to  excite  little 
alarm;  and,  when  they  once  get  hold,  they 
so  completely  master  the  senses,  that  there  is 
little  opportunity  for  the  mind  to  work  as  in 
hours  of  health.  Thus  this  mode  of  death  is, 
practically,   almost   as   sudden   as   if    one   was 


100  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

struck  down  in  a  moment.  The  slight  begin- 
nings of  these  short  and  sharp  sicknesses  are 
most  delusive.  It  is,  most  commonly,  merely 
going  to  sleep,  and  waking  up  with  the  sense  of 
having  taken  a  sudden  cold.  So  a  young  man 
on  Niagara  River  went  to  sleep  in  his  boat,  in  a 
quiet  corner  by  the  shore,  and  neglected — only 
neglected  — to  tie  his  craft.  The  wind  rose, 
and  swept  him  into  the  boiling  current;  and  he, 
waked  by  the  roughness  of  the  water,  shriek- 
ing, went  over  the  falls.  '  In  a  quiet,  peaceful 
hour,  he  only  slept,  and  neglected  the  means 
of  salvation.  Many  a  man,  in  like  manner, 
goes  to  sleep,  caring  nothing  for  God,  or  the 
wrath  to  come,  and  wakes  in  the  agonies  of  dis- 
ease, and  hurries  over  the  falls  of  death  with  no 
possibility  of  rescue.  A  man  fresh  from  the 
pleasures  of  life  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams, 
and  wakes,  feeling  somewhat  ill,  little  thinking 
that  it  is  the  beginning  of  what  proves  to  be 
his  last  sickness.  To  cheer  himself  up,  he 
shuts  out  religious  thought,  and  has  only  a 
light  life.  Friends  will  not  say  a  word  about 
religion,  lest  it  "  excite  "  the  patient.     Soon  the 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  101 

patient  grows  worse,  and  is  unable  to  think  con- 
nectedly of  any  thing;  then  dies.  How  com- 
mon is  this  case.  If  you  think  a  moment,  you 
will  recollect  many  who  have  merely  taken 
cold,  thought  it  nothing  unusual,  and  then  have 
died  within  a  few  days.  At  the  first,  they  were 
not  alarmed,  and  they  did  not  care,  any  more 
than  they  had  done,  to  repent,  and  look  toward 
meeting  God :  and,  when  the  disease  had  made 
some  progress,  they  could  not  do  it ;  it  was  too 
late.  A  fever  is  often  like  a  whirlwind  sweep- 
ing over  the  soul,  even  if  it  spares  the  body  in 
continued  life.  When  a  severe  fever  is  past, 
there  is  usually  no  memory  of  it ;  the  days  or 
weeks  are  a  blank.  I  have  known  persons 
who  thought  that  they  became  Christians  in 
those  hours  when  their  bodies  were  burning 
with  fever,  and  then  remembered  nothing  of 
it  when  they  rose  from  their  beds ;  all  passing 
from  their  minds  like  their  delirious  dreams. 
Yet,  had  they  died  in  that  state,  friends  might 
have  clung  to  this  hope  of  straw.  It  is  true 
that  the  Lord  may  save  in  these  fevered  hours  ; 
but  the  conditions  for  healthy,  voluntary  action, 


102  THE  SILENT  HOUSE, 

are  not  favorable.  A  young  woman  who  was 
in  my  congregation  one  Sabbath,  and  in  eternity 
the  next  Sabbath,  spent  her  hours  upon  the  sick- 
bed in  sharp  cries  of  penitence,  eagerly  seizing 
on  Christ  as  her  Saviour ;  amid  great  trembling 
and  agony  declaring  a  hope  to  be  with  him  in 
paradise,  then  dying  in  doubt  and  delirium. 
It  was  plain  that  her  mental  state  favored  the 
disease ;  that  she  would  have  been  more  likely 
to  have  recovered,  if  her  conscience  had  been 
quiet.  Those  who  are  putting  off  repentance 
till  the  death-bed  need  to  have  a  care  how  they 
take  a  slight  cold,  and  repent  before  they  enter 
the  sick-room. 

Neither  is  the  case  of  those  who  die  by  slow 
and  protracted  disease*  more  favorable  for  lead- 
ing the  patients  to  repentance  in  their  last  days. 
Here,  if  anywhere,  we  might  look  to  find  that 
clear  and  decisive  spiritual  action  in  the  sick- 
chamber,  which  many  promise  themselves  in 
days  of  health.  These  forms  of  disease  are  apt 
to  deceive  their  victims.  The  patients  hope 
soon  to  be  better ;  and,  in  most  cases,  their 
friends    do    not    tell   them   how  ill   they   are. 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  103 

Though  they  may  be  shocked  at  the  first  bad 
symptoms,  they  are  then  easier,  and  get  used  to 
being  sick.  It  seems  to  them  that  there  is  still 
time  enough  to  repent,  —  not  to-day  ;  their  old 
habits  of  delaying  cling  to  them.  Every 
one's  observation  will  recall  cases  where  the 
matter  has  been  put  off  to  the  very  end,  and 
the  soul  has  gone  out  into  the  dark. 

I  should  not  be  true  to  my  observations  in 
parochial  life,  if  I  did  not  allude  to  the  singular 
hostility  to  religious  conversation  which  is  not 
unfrequently  manifested  by  impenitent  persons 
who  are  slowly  dying  by  lingering  disease. 
They  do  not  wish  to  recognize  their  physical  or 
their  spiritual  condition.  Said  Capt.  Paget,  in 
the  story,  "  I  am  not  aware  that  I  am  at  my  last 
gasp,  or  that  I  need  to  be  talked  to  by  my  own 
daughter  as  if  I  were  on  my  death-bed.  .  .  . 
The  gospel  is  all  very  well  in  its  place, —  during 
Sunday-morning  service  ;  .  .  .  but  I  consider, 
that,  when  a  man  is  ill,  there  is  a  considerable 
want  of  tact  in  bringing  the  subject  of  religion 
before  him  in  any  obtrusive  manner."  And,  as 
often  as  any  way,  the  friends  are  ready  to  join 


104  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

in  giving  false  security.  Perhaps  they  are  god- 
less, and  dread,  as  the  patient  does,  any  near 
vision  of  eternity.  Mistress  Quickly  could  not 
comfort  Sir  John  Falstaff  by  praying ;  so  she 
told  him  her  hope  that  there  was  no  pressing 
occasion  for  it :  — 

"  So  'a  cried  out,  '  God,  God,  God  ! '  three  or 
four  times.  Now  I,  to  comfort  him,  bid  him,  'a 
should  not  think  of  God  :  I  hoped  there  was  no 
need  to  trouble  himself  with  any  such  thoughts 

yet." 

I  have  spent  so  many  vain  hours  in  trying  to 
arouse  invalids  to  the  necessity  of  preparing  for 
death,  or  in  the  attempt  to  awaken  the  spiritual 
energies  of  their  family  friends,  that  I  am  less 
hopeful  than  once  of  finding  the  long  days  and 
wearisome  nights  of  the  sick-room  leading  men 
to  God.  It  is  now  more  than  a  thousand  years 
since  it  was  written  by  the  devout  Hindu  sage, 
"  Let  virtuous  deeds  be  done  quickly,  before 
the  cough  comes,  making  the  tongue  silent." 
But  men  are  slow  to  heed  the  warning. 

It  may  be  said,  in  general,  that,  near  the  close 
of  life,  the  vital  powers  are  so  low,  there  is  little 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  105 

strength  for  healthy  decision.  "  In  that  scene 
of  pitiable  feebleness,  when  one  cannot  help 
himself  to  a  draught  of  water,  or  compose  his 
mind  to  make  a  single  request ;  when  he  must 
look  to  his  attendants  to  turn  his  poor  head  on 
his  pillow,  and  to  wipe  the  fast-gathering 
death-sweat  from  his  brow,  —  in  that  hour  of 
besetting  pain  and  gathering  agonies,  who  but 
a  madman  would  deliberately  choose  to  settle 
those  momentous  questions  on  which  the  eter- 
nity of  the  soul  depends  ? "  Those  who  are 
familiar  with  the  sick-bed  know  that  the 
patient  is  often  too  weak  to  think  much.  The 
dying  have  no  strength  to  seize  upon  the  cross. 
They  are  come  to  the  end  of  life  without  prep- 
aration for  it ;  and  their  powers  are  gone 
before  they  know  it.  A  young  man  who  was 
slowly  dying  told  me  that  he  was  not  able  to 
think  much,  or  to  hear  much,  that  he  could  not 
"  attend ;  "  he  heard  as  if  he  heard  not ;  his 
mind  had  sense  only  of  the  mastery  of  disease. 
One  of  my  neighbors  was  told  by  his  pastor, 
"  You  must  go  to  Christ."  The  reply  was, 
"  I  have  no  mind  to  go  anywhere."     Ask  your 


106  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

physician  whether  the  dying-bed  is  a  favora- 
ble place  to  repent ;  and  he  will  tell  you  that 
patients  are  usually  too  feeble  to  do  any  thing 
which  requires  much  thought.  When  the  fatal 
disease  has  made  some  progress,  the  hour  will 
return  no  more.  Pastors,  feeling  how  impera- 
tive it  is  to  prepare  the  dying  for  death,  will, 
nevertheless,  say  frankly  that  they  think  there 
is  little  use  in  going  to  impenitent  death-beds, 
hoping  to  rescue  the  souls  of  men.  It  is  too 
late  to  do  any  thing  for  these  friends.  The  time 
past  has  been  all  squandered,  and  the  time 
present  is  already  pre-occupied  by  death.  The 
wise  pastor  feels  that  the  patient  belongs  not  to 
him,  but  to  the  physician  ;  and  it  is  not  deemed 
wise  to  talk  much  with  the  sick,  or  to  agitate 
topics  which  produce  excitement.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  attend  then  to  the  concerns  which 
should  have  occupied  a  life-time.  If  one  gets 
cold  to-night,  and  has  pneumonia  to-morrow, 
his  pastor  cannot  talk  with  him  on  the  way  of 
life,  even  though  he  die  the  day  following. 
Every  little  while,  I  have  heard  that  one  of  my 
neighbors  is  suddenly  very  sick ;  and  I  have, 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  107 

in  sadness,  said,  "  It  is  too  late,  too  late  :  I  can 
only  pray  for  him  now."  Therefore  it  is  that 
I  go  to  my  neighbor  in  the  hour  of  health, 
saying,  "  Do  not  be  false  to  yourself.  Do  you 
quiet  your  own  spirit  when  you  stand  on  the 
edge  of  the  grave,  ready  at  any  time  to  step 
into  it,  and  knowing  that  disease  and  the  death- 
bed will  unfit  the  soul  for  the  needed  action." 

There  is,  however,  another  consideration. 
Not  only  is  it  true  that  the  conditions  of  the 
close  of  life  are  unfavorable  to  turning  to  God 
in  the  exercise  of  faith;  but,  even  if  there  be 
what  is  called  repentance  upon  the  death-bed, 
the  chances  are,  that  it  is  not  genuine.  The 
hope  is  most  likely  ill  founded. 

The  last  days  of  anxious  illness,  when  the 
bodily  ailment  is  the  engrossing  care,  are  unfa- 
vorable for  learning  the  way  of  salvation.  It 
is  amazing  that  so  many  members  of  Christian 
congregations  have  given  little  attention  to 
what  they  have  heard,  and  that,  when  they 
come  to  die,  they  are  ignorant  of  just  what  to 
do   to   make   their   peace  with   God.     Persons 


108  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

have  confessed  to  me  upon  the  sick-bed,  -that 
they  have  borne  dull  and  heavy  ears  to  the 
house  of  God.  But,  even  if  the  way  be  clear, 
it  would  seem  as  if  the  dying  repent  not  so 
much  of  choice  as  of  hard  necessity ;  it  is  a 
desperate  case  with  them.  Besides,  their  men- 
tal states,  in  the  hours  of  extreme  weakness, 
are  little  to  be  relied  on.  If  persons  have 
depended  upon  a  death-bed  repentance,  and, 
when  the  fatal  hour  strikes,  they  express  re- 
grets for  an  ill-spent  life,  and  compunctions  of 
conscience,  —  even  then,  their  so-called  repent- 
ance may  afford  no  solid  ground  of  security. 
"  When  a  wicked  man  dieth,  his  expectation 
shall  perish ;  and  the  hope  of  the  unjust  man 
perisheth." 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  domestic  friends  may 
cling  to  such  sick-bed  experiences,  and  eagerly 
look  in  the  direction  of  hope  and  light;  but 
there  can  be  no  well-grounded  proof:  the  ques- 
tion hangs  in  doubt.  It  is  impossible  for  one 
upon  a  dying-bed  to  give  good  evidence  of 
having  become  a  Christian :  the  only  test  is  a 
Christian  life.  "  If  ye  continue  in  my  word, 
then  are  ye  my  disciples  indeed." 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  109 

Those  who  have  had  the  best  opportunities 
for  judging — aged  physicians  of  large  prac- 
tice, and  pastors  with  wide  and  varied  experi- 
ence —  say  that  the  evidence  is  strongly  against 
the  value  of  what  is  sometimes  called  death-bed 
repentance ;  since,  in  those  cases  where  the 
patients  recover,  it  is  found  that  the  state  is  not 
abiding.  An  English  physician  kept  a  record 
of  three  hundred  cases  in  which  persons  sup- 
posed that  they  became  Christians  while  upon  a 
sick-bed,  and  afterwards  recovered ;  and  only 
ten  out  of  the  whole  number  gave  good  evi- 
dence of  a  changed  life.  An  American  physi- 
cian, who  kept  a  similar  record,  counted  only 
three  out  of  a  hundred.  City  pastors,  who  go 
to  the  dying  almost  every  day,  find,  of  all  those 
who  are  anxious  for  themselves  in  their  last 
hours,  scarcely  one  a  year  giving  satisfactory 
ground  for  hope.  The  fact  is,  that,  when  the 
human  soul  is  so  hardened  in  sin  as  not  to 
repent  and  believe  in  health,  one  is  not  likely 
to  make  a  radical  change  when  the  powers  of 
body  and  mind  are  prostrated  by  sickness.  And 
though  it  is  true  that  there  are  some  remarkable 


110  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

cases  of  conversion  in  time  of  severe  sickness, 
in  which  the  persons,  upon  recovery,  prove  to 
be  really  renewed,  yet  it  must  be  considered 
the  common  rule,  that  purposes  formed  under 
the  agonies  of  disease  and  the  excitement  of 
an  expected  death,  do  not  stand  against  the 
temptations  of  life.  Practically,  for  myself,  I 
have  so  little  confidence  in  sick-bed  experiences, 
that  I  do  not  look  to  see  men  become  Christians 
when  they  are  sick,  who  would  not  when  they 
were  well.  Death-bed  baptisms,  as  anciently 
practised,  were  deemed  so  worthless,  that  we 
find  Athanasius  relating  to  his  people  an  anec- 
dote of  the  angel,  who  once  complained  of  his 
episcopal  predecessor  for  sending  him  so  many 
"  sacks,  carefully  sealed  up,  with  nothing  what- 
ever inside." 

There  is  so  little  probability  that  men  will 
suitably  attend  to  life's  business  when  they 
come  to  die  ;  and  there  is  so  little  evidence, 
when  it  is  attempted,  that  it  is  successful ;  we 
must  consider  it  most  prejudicial  to  speak  very 
confidently  of  the  well-being  of  those  who 
have  led  most  godless  lives,  and  then  expressed 


SEARCHING  FOR  LIGHT.  \\\ 

contrition,  and  received  unction,  when  they 
could  not  well  do  otherwise.  Whatever  we 
may  hope  in  our  hearts,  we  can  say  little.1 

Christian  faithfulness  may  not  neglect  the 
dying ;  but  it  is  to  spend  itself  chiefly  upon  the 
living.  Turn  we  from  the  house  of  the  dying 
to  the  home  of  the  living,  and  we  find  the  next 
neighbor  persisting  in  delaying  repentance, 
putting  it  off,  perchance,  to  the  death-bed  hour. 
I  miss  faces  from  my  congregation,  and  I  mourn 
over  them  ;  but  the  saddest  thought  is  for  those 
in  health,  who  defer  the  time  for  returning  to 
the  heavenly  Father. 

It  is  to  them  that  I  now  turn,  affectionately 
asking,  —  Do  you  say  that  it  is  never  too  late 
to  repent  ?  I  answer,  that  it  is  never  too 
early  to  repent.  It  is  a  desperate  amusement 
to  play  at  a  game  of  hazards,  to  see  how  near 
you  can  come  to  missing  heaven,  and  yet 
enter.  What  you  are  in  health,  you  will  pro- 
bably continue  to   be   in   death.      The   moral 

1  "Spera,  quia  turns;  time,  quia  solus."  Hope,  because 
there  is  one ;  fear,  because  there  is  but  one. 


112  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

stupor  induced  by  habits  of.  sin  may  hold 
sway  over  the  soul  in  the  last  hours.  Or, 
if  you  are  terrified  at  the  approach  of  the 
grave,  little  use,  my  friends,  will  it  be  for  me 
to  go  to  you  when  you  are  under  that  strange 
excitement  of  dying;  there  will  be  no  respite 
in  which  I  can  quiet  your  well-grounded  alarms. 
Let  me  entreat  you,  rather,  in  the  full  glow  of 
health  to-day,  to  form  an  intimate  friendship 
with  One,  who,  when  your  eyes  become  dim, 
will  light  up  your  pathway,  and  lead  you 
through  the  dark  valley  in  peace. 


THE  LIGHT.  113 


THE  LIGHT. 

Theee  is  a  constitutional  fear  of  death, 
which  cannot  be  overcome  by  moral  consid- 
erations, any  more  than  our  instinctive  fear 
of  fire.  The  law  of  self-preservation  draws  us 
away  from  death.  We  shrink  from  the  act 
of  dying.  It  was  this,  perhaps,  which  Plato 
alluded  to,  when  he  spoke  of  "  the  child  within 
us,  who  trembles  before  death."  The  love  of 
life  and  the  fear  of  death  are  implanted  in  our 
natures  to  protect  us:  they  call  upon  us  to 
stand  aloof,  so  long  as  may  be,  from  the  hour 
in  which  we  shall  give  up  this  known  mode  of 
being,  and  take  up  that  which  lies  beyond  it. 
The  sensations  of  the  hour  of  departure  are  so 
unique,  that  men  do  not  willingly  encounter 
them.  It  is  well  that  it  is  so,  else  many  would 
be  tempted,  when  weary,  to  cast  off  life,  and 


114  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

hasten  to  the  eternal  awards.  Many  fear  death 
as  an  executioner ;  but  it  is  the  constitutional 
dread  of  the  act  of  dying,  which  keeps  men 
from  rushing  in  crowds  to  that  "bourn  whence 
no  traveller  returns." 

This  instinct  of  our  natures  is  right,  not 
wrong.  And  no  person  should  try  to  reason  it 
away  upon  moral  grounds.  It  does  not  argue 
that  one  is  not  truly  loving  God,  and  earnestly 
desiring  the  best  spiritual  gifts,  because  one 
shrinks  from  the  gateway  of  the  tomb.  "  Is  it 
anywhere  written  in  the  New  Testament  that 
you  shall  not  fear  death  ?  It  is  a  privilege  not 
to  fear  it ;  but  a  duty  it  is  not."  x 

We  certainly  should  not  allow  this  fear  to 
torment  us.  If  we  receive  the  testimony  of 
physicians,  and  recall  our  own  observation  at 
the  bedsides  of  the  dying,  we  must  believe  that 
it  is  an  easy  thing  to  die.  Leaving  out  of 
account  that  which  greets  the  soul  just  beyond 
the  veil,  the  mere  physical  phenomena  accom- 
panying death  are  not  to  be  dreaded  so  much 
as  is  commonly  supposed.     There  is  no  doubt 

i  Mouutford's  Euthanasy. 


THE  LIGHT.         t<Mf 

that  the  physical  contortions  which  are  thought 
to  be  evidences  of  pain,  and  which  sometimes 
so  distress  those  who  linger  in  the  room,  are 
most  usually  passed  through  in  a  state  of 
unconsciousness.  In  the  last  hours,  the  dying 
are  most  frequently  in  a  state  of  stupor,  which 
bears  with  it  a  sense  of  repose.  This  numbness 
preceding  death  alleviates  physical  pain,  even 
when  it  is  so  slight  as  to  allow  the  dying  some 
use  of  the  mind  in  conversing  with  friends  up 
to  the  very  moment  of  departure.  The  pains 
before  dying  are  incident  to  the  disease ;  the 
patient  might  suffer  the  same,  if  he  were  to 
recover :  these  pains  are  no  part  of  dying.  As 
death  approaches,  the  patient  becomes  less  con- 
scious of  suffering.  Death  is  the  cessation  of 
sensibility ;  so  that  there  can  be  no  suffering  at 
the  very  close,  when  sensibility  becomes  extinct. 
One  passes  from  life  to  death  almost  insensibly, 
so  far  as  concerns  physical  pain.  The  crisis 
comes  and  goes  in  merely  closing  the  eyes  to 
'the  earthly,  and  opening  them  upon  the  eternal 
scenes ;  the  mind  conscious  all  the  time,  but, 
like  a  traveller,  one  moment  gazing  on  familiar 


116  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

faces,  and  the  next  moment  seeing  beyond  the 
ken  of  earthly  sight.1 

Then  it  is  that  there  often  comes  about  that 
mysterious  change  which  restores  the  face  to 
the  look  it  had  in  health.  The  body  calms 
itself  after  the  soul  has  left  it.  Before  death, 
there  may  be  an  expression  of  care  and  weak- 
ness and  suffering ;  but,  as  soon  as  the  vital 
functions  cease,  the  body,  as  if  by  instinct, 
composes  itself  for  a  quiet  and  natural  sleep, 
the  face  not  uncommonly  putting  on  that 
beauty  of  character  which  was  worn  in  days 
of  health.  We  behold  then  that  which  is  far 
more  lovely  than  any  flowers  that  adorn  the 
casket,  a  beauty  which  no  sculptor  can  equal, — 
the  cold  chiselled  features  of  the  marble  dead. 
Poets  and  men  of  letters  have  commemorated 
this  change  in  the  body,  when  passion  is  stilled, 
and  the  face  is  glorified.  And  we  who  walk  in 
humbler  ranks  have  noticed  in  our  own  hours  of 
sorrow  that  the  young  appear  more  mature,  and 
the  aged  brow  smoother,  after  Death  has  placed- 

i  Vide  Papillon,  Nature  and  Life,  p.  309,  American  edition ; 
and,  more  fully,  Philip,  Nature  of  Sleep  and  Death,  pp.  197, 
219,  228,  &c. :  London,  1834. 


THE  LIGHT.  117 

his  seal  upon  the  clay ;  and  we  have  seen  that 
faces  which  have  been  pinched  and  sharpened 
by  poverty  sometimes  come  to  wear  the  peace 
of  God,  as  though  the  radiance  of  heaven  shone 
upon  them ;  and  we  are  conseious  of  having 
less  fear  of  death  after  gazing  upon  these 
changes  wrought  by  the  last  sleep. 

Probably  it  is  the  constitutional  fear  of  death 
which  leads  so  many  minds  to  look  toward  the 
dwelling-place  of  the  dead  with  feelings  of 
gloom.  When  men  are  downcast  through  the 
final  failure  of  their  grandest  ambitions,  they 
naturally  fall  into  a  churchyard  style  of  talk, 
like  the  despairing  king  in  the  old  tragedy :  — 

"  Of  comfort  no  man  speak; 
Let's  talk  of  graves  and  worms  and  epitaphs  ; 
Make  dust  our  paper,  and  with  rainy  eyes 
Write  sorrow  on  the  bosom  of  the  earth." 

It  is  the  thought  which  every  man  has  of  his 
own  destiny,  —  to  lie  down,  some  day,  in  God's 
acre,  —  that  casts  a  shadow  upon  the  burial- 
ground.     Men  think  of 

"  The  knell,  the  shroud,  the  mattock,  and  the  grave, 
The  deep  damp  vault,  the  darkness,  and  the  worm." 


118  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  influence  of 
our  Christian  faith  in  giving  more  cheerful 
views  of  the  act  of  dying  and  of  the  last 
resting-place.  Anticipations  of  future  good 
unconsciously  lighten  the  weighty  fears  which 
attach  to  the  death-bed,  and  make  the  grave  a 
place  of  repose.  These  ideas  have  exerted 
their  power  during  many  centuries.  The  old 
Hebrews  wrote  that  the  dead  slept  with  their 
fathers :  "  He  giveth  his  beloved  sleep."  Of 
those  to  whom  Christ  appeared,  it  is  written 
that  "  some  are  fallen  asleep."  "  Lazarus 
sleepeth."  "  Stephen  fell  asleep."  At  the 
death  of  Christ,  the  saints  which  "  slept  "  arose. 
The  early  Christians  chose  to  use  the  word 
"  cemetery,"  which  means  sleeping-place.  At 
the  first  they  wrote  over  all  Christian  graves, 
"  He  rests  in  peace."  When  unbelief  came  in, 
it  was  written,  "  May  he  rest  in  peace ! "  If  we 
look  upon  death  as  a  sleep,  there  is  something 
very  attractive  in  those  parcels  of  ground 
which  are  set  apart  for  "  the  noiseless  kingdom 
of  the  dead."  The  Egyptian  custom  of  adorn- 
ing  the  burial-place,  and  bestowing  less  care 


THE  LIGHT.  119 

upon  the  homes  of  the  living,  made  the  tombs 
of  the  rich  far  less  repulsive  than  the  hovels 
of  the  poor.1  The  beauty  of  many  modern 
cemeteries  accords  with  our  highest  Christian 
sentiments,  and  with  the  most  cheering  customs 
of  antiquity,  in  making  the  resting-places  of 
the  dead  as  home-like  as  possible. 

Some,  indeed,  have  looked  upon  the  last 
sleep  with  such  singular  favor  as  to  anticipate 
it  in  an  eccentric  manner.  Our  New  England 
lord,  Lord  Timothy  Dexter,  was  not  more  wild 
than  the  kings  of  the  Old  World.  Did  not 
the  royal  father  of  Philip  the  II.  place  him- 
self in  shroud  and  coffin,  and  hear  his  own 
dirge,  and  lie  quietly  for  a  time  in  his  own 
tomb  ?  Philip  the  IV.  used  sometimes  to 
repose  in  the  niche  he  had  selected  for  himself 
in  the   royal   burial-place,  and   there  meditate 

1  "The  Egyptians  call  the  houses  of  the  living  inns, 
because  they  remain  there  hut  a  little  while.  The  sepul- 
chres of  the  dead  they  call  everlasting  habitations,  because 
they  abide  in  the  grave  to  infinite  generations.  Therefore 
they  are  not  very  curious  in  the  building  of  their  houses  ; 
but,  in  beautifying  their  sepulchres,  they  leave  nothing 
undone  that  can  be  thought  of."  — Diodorus  Siculus. 


120  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

on  death.  Mr.  Jacox,1  in  his  diligent  compila- 
tion, also  instances  the  case  of  the  Spanish 
painter,  Louis  de  Vargas,  "  who  used  to  lie  in 
a  coffin  some  hours  daily,  meditating  upon 
death."  The  historians,  however,  do  not  relate 
that  these  men  lived  better  lives  for  their  day- 
dreams concerning  the  last  sleep. 

An  old-time  friend  of  mine,  —  whose  general 
course  of  life  was  wholesome,  but  who  had  a 
most  singular  taste  for  visiting  every  cemetery 
within  the  circuit  of  her  travels,  and  who 
made  an  old  hearse  her  favorite  seat  when  she 
lived  in  the  house  of  an  undertaker,  —  visited 
one  of  our  great  cities  of  the  dead.  And  I 
have  certain  memoranda  she  made  upon  her 
visit,  which  are  the  more  noteworthy  as  being, 
with  a  single  exception,2  the  last  literary  work 
she  undertook;  and  this  writing  itself  was 
never  finished.  It  was  one  bright  May  morning 
that  she  entered  this  home  of  the  dead;  and 
her  own  body  was  soon  laid  to  rest  with  the 
other  sleepers '.  She  began  by  setting  forth 
rhymes. 

1  At  Nightfall  and  Midnight,  pp.  396,  397.      2  Vide,  p.  12. 


THE  LIGHT.  121 

"  In  a  city  of  marble  palaces 
I  walked  at  the  break  of  day, 

When  the  gushing  notes  from  the  song-birds'  throats, 
Echoed  on  every  spray. 
No  casement  was  opened  to  greet  the  morn, 
No  children  ran  forth  in  glee." 

But  the  rhymes  and  the  measure  did  not 
quite  suit ;  and  they  were  left  forever.  I  have 
taken  in  hand  the  rough  notes,  in  pencilled 
prose,  which  indicate  the  line  of  thought  she 
might  have  followed,  if  death  had  not  inter- 
fered. Her  imagination  went  back  to  remote 
antiquity,  when,  in  geologic  ages,  this  place  was 
set  apart  and  prepared  for  its  present  use.  After 
this,  it  was,  for  many  centuries,  the  home  of  the 
Indian. »  Even  then,  ancient  trees  were  standing 
as  hoary  sentries  upon  these  sweet  hills ;  and, 
when  a  great  city  grew  up  near  by,  this  forest- 
clad  mount  and  these  quiet'  glens  were  famous 
for  beauty.  The  living  loved  to  walk  here,  and 
to  dream  of  repose  under  the  venerable  shade. 
To-day  this  spot  is  densely  peopled  by  a  most 
varied  population.  "  The  old  and  the  young, 
the  rich  and  the  poor,  orators,  singers,  poets, 


122  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

scholars,  —  all  are  here.  But  the  poet  has  left 
his  pen ;  and  the  voice  of  song  and  of  eloquent 
speech  is  silent.  All  children  have  left  their 
play ;  and  their  fathers  and  mothers  have  laid 
aside  all  busy  cares.  Here  they  sleep.  Their 
chapel  bell  does  not  call  them  to  prayer.  There 
is  no  sound  of  strife  or  toil,  nor  any  alarm  of 
war.  No  thrill  of  earthly  joy,  or  quivering  of 
human  sorrow,  disturbs  the  sleepers.  -Winter 
and  summer  are  alike  to  them.  Neither  sun- 
shine nor  storm  can  penetrate  the  walls  of  their 
houses.  Poverty  and  riches  are  not  heeded ; 
and  all  the  great  social  differences  are  made 
equal.  Here  is  the  dust  of  one  who  was  long 
a  servant  in  this  house  of  death,  a  workman, 
who  graded  these  walks,  and  trimmed  those  bor- 
ders; and  near  at  hand  is  the  monument  of 
one  whom  the  world  honored  as  an  illustrious 
statesman.  Not  far  off  is  the  grave  of  a  soldier 
who  survived  many  fierce  battles ;  and  here  is 
the  unhewn  monument  which  marks  the  rest- 
ing-place of  a  beloved  teacher  whose  words 
have  gone  throughout  the  world.  Here  they 
will  sleep  till  the  morning  of  the  resurrection. 


THE  LIGHT.  123 

These  grassy  nooks  will  all  be  occupied,  and 
these  bounds  enlarged ;  yet  all  will  be  filled, 
and  some  day  this  will  be  a  sealed  cemetery. 
Age  after  age  a  deeper  solemnity  will  rest  upon 
it.  These  oaks  and  pines  will  thrive,  become 
venerable,  and  perish ;  and  other  generations  of 
trees  will  take  their  place.  Distant  shores  may 
attract  the  tide  of  civilization ;  and  men  may 
visit  this  spot,  as  now  they  go  to  Thebes  and 
Arabia  Petreea. 

"  Whether  we  suffer  our  thoughts  to  wander 
in  the  mighty  past,  or  reach  out  into  the  distant 
future,  we  are  impressed  with  the  brevity  of 
this  present  life :  it  is  a  mere  plank,  to  which 
we  cling  for  an  hour;  and  all  around  us  are 
illimitable  waters,  whose  shores  there  are  none. 
I  ask,  \  What,  then,  am  I  ? '  and  I  hear  a  voice 
from  heaven  declaring  that  my  soul  is  more  en- 
during than  the  material  creation.  This  will  be 
proved  in  the  hour  of  the  resurrection.  These 
monuments  of  stone  will  endure  till  the  names 
upon  them  become  illegible,  till  granite  and 
marble  crumble  under  the  action  of  frost  and 
rain,  the  sunshine  and  the  lichen;    but  there 


124  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

will  come  a  morning  when  these  silent  sleepers 
will  start  at  the  sound  of  the  trumpet,  and  go 
forth  to  stand  upon  the  right,  or  upon  the  left, 
of  their  final  Judge." 

These  notes  were  never  touched  again.  The 
Death  Angel  came  in,  and  called  away  the  poet ; 
and  her  body  is  now  resting  by  the  side  of  her 
childhood  companion.  Neither  was  this  child 
friend  afraid  to  go  to  her  rest ;  for,  after  she  had 
passed  away,  I  found  a  little  slip  of  paper  in  her 
Bible,  with  these  words  upon  it :  u  Let  us  lie 
down  in  peace,  and  take  our  rest :  it  will  not  be 
an  everlasting  night,  nor  endless  sleep." 

Caryl  the  commentator  has  said,  that  "  sleep 
is  a  short  death ;  and  death  is  but  a  long  sleep." 
"  I  close  mine  eyes  in  security,"  are  the  words 
of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "content  to  take  my 
leave  of  the  sun,  and  sleep  unto  the  resurrec- 
tion." This  feeling  of  restfulness  on  the  part 
of  those  who  are  about  to  die  is  in  strong  con- 
trast with  the  apprehensions  entertained  -by 
many  who  keep  much  company  with  the  guilty 
and  unforgiven.  It  is  common  to  meet  those 
who  have  for  years  entertained  gloomy  views  of 


THE  LIGHT.  125 

death,  as  if  there  were  no  hope ;  blighting  fears 
cursing  the  heart  of  childhood,  vexing  middle 
life,  and  terrifying  old  age.  Disguise  it  as  w£ 
may,  it  is  certain  that  many  in  our  Christian 
communities  have  so  great  a  dread  of  death, 
that  they  are  ready  to  adopt  the  choice  of 
Achilles,  when  he  declared  to  the  wisest  of  the 
Greeks  that  he  would  rather  be  a  swineherd  in 
this  world  than  to  walk  the  Elysian  Fields ;  or, 
to  make  the  words  of  Euripides  their  own, 
"  It  is  better  to  live  ill  than  to  die  well."  But 
those  who  persist  in  such  pagan  fears  ought,  at 
the  least,  to  be  cheered  by  even  such  poor  hopes 
as  some  pagans  have  had.  Was  it  not  said,  of 
old  time,  that  one  who  was  beloved  of  the  gods 
asked  Apollo  for  the  best  gift  ?  "  At  the  end 
of  seven  days,"  was  the  answer,  "it  shall  be 
granted."  When  the  hour  came,  he  closed  his 
eyes  in  sweet  sleep,  and  saw  the  earth  no  more 
forever.  So  great  is  the  boon  of  immortality, 
that  Plotinus  thanked  God  that  his  soul  was 
not  tied  to  an  undying  body.  Are  there  no 
evils  in  this  life,  that  we  should  so  cling  to  it  ? 
Are  there  no  hopes  in  the  future  ?     There  is, 


126  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

according  to  Mr.  Lecky,  an  old  Irish  legend 
concerning  two  islands  in  a  certain  lake  in 
Minister.  "  Into  the  first,  death  could  never 
enter ;  but  age,  and  the  paroxysms  of  fearful 
suffering,  were  all  known  there ;  and  they  did 
their  work,  till  the  inhabitants,  tired  of  their 
immortality,  learned  to  look  upon  the  opposite 
island  as  upon  a  haven  of  repose.  They 
launched  their  barks  upon  its  gloomy  waters ; 
they  touched  its  shore,  and  they  were  at  rest." 
Richter  says,  that  he  once  saw  in  his  dreams 
an  old  man  who  was  never  to  die,  and  that 
his  life  was  full  of  sorrow.  Having  heavenly 
aspirations,  he  was  chained  to  this  globe.  In 
the  springtime  he  was  miserable ;  for  the  days 
of  hope,  prophesying  of  a  better  future,  gave 
no  hope  to  him.  And  if  he  heard  the  sound 
of  music,  which  arouses  all  one's  capacity  for 
the  infinite,  he  was  unspeakably  sad.  When 
lie  thought  on  God  and  truth  and  virtue,  he 
grieved,  knowing  how  little  a  child  of  eartli 
would  ever  know  of  that  which  alone  makes 
life  a  joy  to  the  good  man.  And,  when  he 
looked  toward  the  stars,  he  said,  "  So,  then,  I 


THE  LIGHT.  127 

am  parted  from  you  to  all  eternity  by  an  impas- 
sible abyss.  The  great  universe  of  suns  is 
above,  below,  and  round  about  me ;  but  I  am 
chained  to  a  little  ball  of  dust  and  ashes." 

We  need  not  turn  to  the  New  Testament 
story  to  discover  one,  who,  amid  pagan  dark- 
ness, sought  the  heavenly  light,  and  made  con- 
stant preparation  for  the  noble  employments  of 
a  future  life,  by  sturdy  attempts  to  live  nobly 
now.  And  to  him  death  had  no  terror.  "  It 
would  be  ridiculous,"  said  Socrates,  "for  a 
man,  who,  during  his  life,  has  habituated 
himself  to  live  like  one  who  was  very  near 
to  death,  to  be  afterwards  distressed  when  this 
event  actually  overtook  him.  Shall  one  who 
verily  loves  wisdom,  and  entertains  the  strong 
hope  that  he  shall  find  that  which  deserves 
this  name  nowhere  except  in  the  other  world, 
instead  of  rejoicing  to  depart,  be  afflicted  at 
dying?  Does  not  the  spul  thus  conditioned 
depart  to  that  which  is  congenial  to  its  nature, 
—  to  the  unseen,  the  divine,  the  undying,  the 
wise  ?  Arriving  there,  its  lot  is  to  be  blessed, 
to   be   emancipated  from  error  and  ignorance, 


128  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

fears,   wild    appetites,    and    all    other   earthly 

evils." 


We  must,  however,  turn  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment story  to  find  the  fullest  record  of  those 
principles  which  lead  men  to  triumph  over 
death,  and  find  in  the  Christian  Church  the 
lives  of  those  who  have  not  only  had  no  fear  in 
the  hour  of  departure,  but  have  looked  forward 
with  intelligent  joy,  anticipating  future  blessed- 
ness. 

The  great  ground  of  fear  in  meeting  Death  is 
not  so  much  the  contest  with  him  as  that 
which  lies  beyond.  "  Death  being  a  fact,"  said 
a  wise  man  of  the  East,  "  I  have  no  fear  of  it. 
That  which  I  alone  fear  is  not  having  lived 
well  enough."  Right  living,  and  the  immortal 
hope  which  comes  with  it,  is  best  secured 
through  our  Christian  faith.  It  is  not  only 
true  that  Christianity^  has  introduced  into  the 
world  at  large  more  cheerful  views  of  death, 
but  it  has  enabled  multitudes  of  individual 
souls  to  approach  the  end  of  life  in  triumph. 
The  Son  of  man  was  revealed  "that  through 


THE  LIGHT.  129 

death  lie  might  destroy  him  that  had  the  power 
of  death,  that  is,  the  devil;  and  deliver  them 
who,  through  fear  of  death,  were  all  their  life- 
time subject  to  bondage." 

Our  dread  of  dying  is  in  part  removed  by 
the  thought  that  Christ  has  honored  the  article 
of  death  by  passing  through  it.  We  can 
certainly  follow  in  the  steps  of  the  Master, 
although  the  foot  thereby  fall  into  the  grave. 
Two  men  have  gone  to  heaven  without  dying ; 
but  God's  Son  chose  the  common  lot,  that  we 
ourselves  might  pluck  flowers  from  the  garden 
of  his  burial,  and  adorn  the  mounds  so  dear  to 
us.  Death  is  only  a  change  in  the  mode  of 
existence.  The  Incarnate  Word  could  pass 
through  what  we  call  death,  and  merely  drop 
off  the  flesh ;  the  spiritual  life  remaining 
untouched. 

We  are  further  taught  in  the  New  Testament, 
that  the  followers  of  Christ  die  in  answer  to 
the  prayer  of  their  Lord :  "  Father,  I  will  that 
they  also  whom  thou  hast  given  me  be  with  me 
where  I  am,  that  they  may  behold  my  glory." 
Every  day  God   answers   this  prayer  of  Jesus. 


130  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

"  And,  if  I  go  and  prepare  a  place  for  you," 
said  our  Saviour,  "I  will  come  again,  and 
receive  you  unto  myself,  that  where  I  am  there 
ye  may  be  also."  "  Having  prepared  a  home 
for  his  children,"  adds  the  commentator,  "he 
does  not  leave  them  to  find  their  way  to  it  alone 
and  unguided ;  but  he  comes  back  himself,  and 
takes  them  there."  Christ  reaches  out  after  his 
own,  and  comes  eagerly  to  meet  them,  as  he 
said  he  would.  And,  when  he  comes,  the 
child  of  Christ  does  not  fear :  death  is  merely 
the  coming  of  God's  Son.  "  Tell  them,"  said  a 
South  Hadley  school-girl  in  dying,  when  she 
learned  that  her  parents  could  not  reach  her 
before  she  saw  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  man, 
— "  tell  them  that  Jesus  called  me,  and  I  could 
not  wait  for  them.  '  For  he  that  loveth  father 
or  mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me.' " 
Death  is  thus  changed  from  a  curse  to  a 
blessing.  "  What  do  you  think  of  death  ? " 
asked  one.  "Why,  when  death  com'es,  I  shall 
smile  upon  him,  if  God  smiles  upon  me."  "  My 
brother,"  said  a  young  man  when  he  saw  the 
coming   of    the   Saviour,   "  they   call  this   the 


THE  LIGHT.  131 

River  of  Death.  It  is  no  such  thing :  it  is 
the  River  of  Life." 

"  Is  that  a  death-bed  where  the  Christian  lies? 
Yes,  but  not  his:  'tis  death  itself  there  dies." 

Wherever  the  Angel  of  Death  sees  the  mark 
of  atoning  blood  sprinkled,  he  passes  by. 

"  Out  of  the  shadow  into  the  sun," 

is  the  fit  epitaph  for  one  who  looks  upon  death 
as  the  day-dawn.  The  gloomy  gates  of  death 
are  illuminated  by  rays  of  celestial  light. 
Death  is  a  door,  ushering  from  life  to  life. 
Chambers  of  painful  disease  are  thus  trans- 
formed into  the  ante-chambers  of  heaven  :  the 
door  may  suddenly  open,  leading  one  from  earth 
to  heaven  in  a  moment.  Death  is  the  servant 
of  God,  leading  us  forward  to  undying  life. 
"  Death,"  says  Dr.  Sears,1  "  is  a  stage  in  human 
progress,  to  be  passed  as  we  would  pass  from 
childhood  to  youth,  or  from  youth  to  manhood, 
and  with  the  same  consciousness  of  an  ever- 
unfolding   nature."      And,  it  is   added,  under 

1  Foregleams  of  Immortality. 


132  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

healthful  conditions,  "immortality  would  not 
come  upon  us  by  surprise,  but  as  manhood 
comes  upon  youth,  as  childhood  comes  upon 
infancy,  or  as  day  comes  upon  the  darkness, 
melting  away  the  bars  of  night  in  soft  surges  of 
golden  fire." 

It  was  written  concerning  the  founder  of 
the  church  that  "  he  sojourned  in  the  land  of 
promise,  as  in  a  strange  country,  dwelling  in 
tabernacles  with  Isaac  and  Jacob,  the  heirs 
with  him  of  the  same  promise ;  for  he  looked 
for  a  city  which  hath  foundations,  whose 
builder  and  maker  is  God."  The  mediseval 
men  commonly  talked  of  heaven  as  "  our  coun- 
try," and  this  world  as  "  the  way,"  and  all  men 
as  "  travellers."  It  was  an  ordinary  mode  of 
speech  :  "  We  will  do  thus  and  so  as  long  as  we 
are  '  in  the  way.'  "  In  accordance  with  this,  we 
find  the  words  of  a  French  preacher  of  the 
seventeenth  century :  "He  that  travels  in  a 
strange  country  may  gather  some  flowers  in  his 
passage,  or  take  with  him  a  few  ears  of  corn ; 
but,  if  he  be  wise,  he  will  never  tarry  to  build 
him  a  palace."     Life  is  a  pilgrimage  ;  but  our 


THE  LIGHT.  133 

palmer's  weeds  will  not  be  worn  forever.  And 
we  ought  to  look  on  this  world  merely  as  on 
a  field,  —  a  field  of  labor,  in  which,  indeed,  we 
have  a  place  to  lodge,  sometimes  in  one  part  of 
the  field,  sometimes  in  another ;  but  our  home 
is  in  our  Father's  house  ;  and  the  call  of  Death 
sounds  in  our  ears  "  like  a  friend's  voice  from 
a  distant  field,  approaching  through  the  dark- 
ness," asking  us  to  go  home.  James  Martineau 
has  written,  that  "  Death,  under  the  Christian 
aspect,  is  but  God's  method  of  colonization, 
the  transition  from  this  mother-country  of  our 
race  to  the  fairer  and  newer  world  of  our 
emigration."  The  most  eloquent  among  the 
Romans  expressed  himself  in  like  manner :  "I 
consider  this  world  as  a  place  which  Nature 
never  intended  for  my  permanent  abode ;  and  I 
look  on  my  departure  from  it,  not  as  being 
driven  from  my  habitation,  but  simply  as  leav- 
ing an  inn."  This  world  does  not  offer  a  true 
home.  It  was  a  wise  answer  which  Richard 
Baxter  made  upon  his  dying-bed  to  one  who 
asked  how  he  was,  "  Almost  well,  and  nearly  at 
home."     "  I  am  going  home  as  fast  as  I  can," 


134  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

said  another  believer  ;  "  and  I  bless  God  that  I 
have  a  good  home  to  go  to."  An  eminent 
preacher  represents  the  dying  Christian  as  re- 
joicing in  his  nearness  to  the  everlasting  home : 
"  Here,  in  this  chamber,  on  this  bed,  my  exile 
and  my  wanderings  cease."  So.  confident  did  a 
quaint  German  divine  in  the  time  of  Luther 
feel  concerning  this  home,  that,  when  he  was 
told  his  son  could  not  reach  his  death-bed,  he 
sent  word  to  him  that  he  need  not  hurry,  for 
they  should  see  one  another  in  the  eternal  life. .« 
It  is  this  home-like  feeling  concerning  the 
future  state  which  leads  many  to  desire  to  de- 
part, waiting  day  by  day  for  Christ's  coming, 
hearkening  for  his  steps.  "  You  have  every 
thing  to  live  for,"  it  was  said  to  one  dying 
woman.  But  she  answered,  "  I  have  every 
thing  to  die  for."  "  Look  up,  and  lift  up  your 
heads ;  for  your  redemption  draweth  nigh." 
"What  a  superlatively  grand  and  consoling 
idea  is  that  of  death ! "  says  John  Foster. 
"  Without  this  radiant  idea,  this  delightful 
morning  star,  indicating  that  the  luminary  of 
eternity  is  about  to  rise,  life  would,  to  my  view, 


THE  LIGHT.  135 

darken  into  midnight  melancholy."  Sailing  on 
life's  bitter  sea,  we  rejoice  with  joy  unspeaka- 
ble when  we  approach  the  land,  and  the  high 
headlands  of  heaven  heave  in  sight :  in  a  day 
or  two  we  shall  touch  the  shore,  and  walk  the 
streets  of  the  better  country.  It  will  be  a 
happy  day,  in  which  we  are  released  from  the 
earth,  and  bidden  to  ascend  the  skies. 

Is  it  not  a  day  for  song  and  flowers,  when 
the  dead  are  laid  away  in  honor  ?  Is  it  not  an 
hour  for  congratulation,  when  the  children  of 
mortality  enter  into  the  life  everlasting  ?  Did 
not  a  pagan  sage  speak  of  the  dying-day  as 
the  birthday  of  eternity  ?  Christians  in  former 
ages  called  death  a  new  birth. 

ii  Mortals  cried,  —  A  man  is  dead  : 
Angels  sang,  —  A  child  is  born. ' ' 

Those  whose  names  are  inscribed  in  the  book 
of  life  are  not  to  be  counted  with  the  dead. 
"Soon  you  will  be  numbered  no  more  in  the 
land  of  the  living,"  said  one  very  cautiously 
to  a  beloved  friend.  But  she  made  answer, 
"  Soon.  I  shall  be  in  the  land  of  the  Kving : 
now  I  am  in  the  land  of  the  dying." 


136  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

It  is  the  prospect  of  entering  at  once  into 
the  presence  of  the  Bridegroom  of  the  soul, 
which  satisfies  the  longing  of  those  who  are 
about  to  die.  "  The  nearer  I  come  to  death, 
somehow  Jesus  and  I  get  nearer  together," 
said  an  aged  slave.  Governor  Dunlap  of 
Maine  weighed  the  words,  as,  slowly,  with 
failing  breath,  he  declared,  "If  I  know  any 
thing,  I  know  that  I  love  Christ."  The  dying 
Melancthon  rejoiced  that  he  should  soon  find 
out  the  harmony  of  the  two  natures  of  the 
man  Christ  Jesus.  "  Thou  canst  not  see  my 
face,  and  live,"  answered  God  to  Moses ;  and 
St.  Austin  replies,  "  Then,  Lord,  let  me  die, 
that  I  may  see  thy  face." 

This  nearness  to  Christ  in  the  hour  of  dying 
has  led  some  persons  to  feel  impatient  with 
the  despondency  of  those  around  them,  who 
appear  to  look  toward  heaven  as  a  wild  coast, 
upon  which  it  is  unfortunate  for  one  to  be 
cast.  When  a  friend  asked  Payson  whether 
he  felt  "  reconciled  "  to  die,  he  answers,  "  That 
word  is  too  cold.  I  rejoice  ;  I  triumph ;  I  seem 
to  be    swimming    in  a  river  of  pleasure.  .  .  . 


THE  LIGHT.  137 

The  celestial  city  is  now  full  in  my  view.  .  .  . 
Nothing  separates  me  from  it  but  the  river  of 
death  ;  and  that  appears  an  insignificant  rill, 
that  may  be  crossed  by  a  single  step,  whenever 
God  shall  give  permission."  I  confess  that 
I  do  not  understand  the  use  of  this  word 
"  reconciled,"  when  applied  to  a  Christian's 
willingness  to  die.  Do  we  ask  a  weary  wan- 
derer, if  he  is  merely  "  reconciled  "  to  go  to 
the  heavenly  home  ?  Is  the  sick  man  merely 
"reconciled"  to  get  well?  Is  the  hungry  man 
"  reconciled "  to  enter  on  eternal  feastings  ? 
Is  the  thirsty  man  "reconciled"  to  taste  at 
last  the  fount  of  God?  Said  an  old  martyr 
going  to  be  burned,  "  Only  two  stiles  more  to 
get  over,  and  I  am  at  my  Father's  house." 
The  Christian  in  conversion  submits  himself 
to  God  for  all  eternity ;  and  mere  physical 
death,  the  entering  into  everlasting  rest,  is 
nothing  concerning  which  we  should  quarrel 
with  God,  and  talk  about-being  "reconciled." 
Let  us,  then,  lie  down  quietly,  not  unwilling 
to  go  to  our  rest.  We  spend  the  day  for  God, 
and  are  glad  when  night  comes. 


138  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

Through  our  Christian  faith  the  timid  are 
made  bold ;  and  the  humble  in  the  earth 
triumph  when  they  lie  down  to  die.  "Me 
certain  Jesus  Christ  no  forget  poor  Indian," 
said  a  red-man  a  hundred  years  ago.  "  Me 
never  forget  him  one  day.  Me  hope  see  him 
and  pale  missionary  'fore  morning.  Me  no 
fear.  Inside  eyes  all  open  like  Lake  Sa-hillan." 
Then  he  closed  his  bodily  eyes,  praying  that 
Christ  would  make  him  white  as  snow,  and 
beautiful  as  the  rainbow.  An  aged  woman 
of  my  acquaintance  died  a  little  while  ago  ;  and 
she  lifted  up  her  hands,  exclaiming,  "  They  are 
coming  ;  they  are  coming  I  Oh,  how  blissful  is 
dying!"  What  wonder  that  John  Wesley's 
mother  in  dying,  said,  "  Children,  when  I  am 
dead,  sing  a  song  of  praise  to  God " !  Labor 
gives  place  to  repose ;  grief  gives  place  to  joy; 
gloom  gives  place  to  glory ;  sing,  then,  a  song 
of  praise  to  God.  Among  our  own  homes  we 
have  seen  the  triumphs  of  faith ;  one  and 
another  and  another  calmly  facing  death,  and 
with  quietness  or  gladness  entering  into  the 
presence   of    the   unseen   Saviour.      An   aged 


THE  LIGHT.  139 

father  goes  eagerly  to  repose  in  Christ,  or  one 
in  the  early  bloom  of  manhood  has  faith  with- 
out fear.  A  sister  or  a  mother,  during  many 
months  of  wasting  disease,  has  perfect  rest, 
welcoming  death  afar  off.  We  hear  a  voice, 
saying,  "  As  soon  as  I  close  my  eyes,  I  shall 
see  the  Saviour  ■  face  to  face ;  and  I  long  to 
behold  Him.  ...  I  have  had  hold  of  the 
Saviour's  hand  all  winter ;  and  now  I  want 
to  see  Him." 

From  all  our  homes  the  people  of  God  are 
gathering.  "  Heaven,"  says  Robert  Hall,  "  is 
attracting  to  itself  whatever  is  congenial  to  its 
nature ;  is  enriching  itself  by  the  spoils  of  earth, 
and  collecting  within  its  capacious  bosom  what- 
ever is  pure,  permanent,  and  divine."  And 
Robertson  has  said,  "  Every  day  his  servants 
are  dying  modestly  and  peacefully ;  not  a  word 
of  victory  on  their  lips,  but  Christ's  deep 
triumph  in  their  hearts;  watching  the  slow 
progress  of  their  own  decay,  and  yet  so  far 
emancipated  from  personal  anxiety,  that  they 
are  still  able  to  think  and  to  plan  for  others ; 
not   knowing   that   they   are   doing   any  great 


140  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

tiling.  They  die,  and  the  world  hears  nothing 
of  them  ;  and  yet  theirs  was  the  completest 
victory.  They  came  to  the  battlefield,  —  the 
field  to  which  they  had  been  looking  forward 
all  their  lives ;  and  the  enemy  was  not  to  be 
found.  There  was  no  foe  to  fight  with."  We 
ask,  therefore,  the  triumphant  question  of  Paul, 
"  O  death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  O  grave,  where 
is  thy  victory  ?  " 

Is  it  not  written,  that  "  the  harvest  takes 
upon  itself  the  color  of  the  sun  when  it  is  ready 
to  bow  before  the  sickle  "  ?  So,  in  preparing 
for  heaven,  the  soul  ripens  for  it ;  and,  already 
upon  the  bed  of  dying,  it  is  "  beginning  to  wear 
the  golden  coloring  of  the  skies."  The  life- 
work  prepares  for  an  abundant  entrance  into 
the  glory  which  is  laid  up  for  the  Son  of  man 
and  his  servants.  "  Father,  I  have  glorified 
thee  on  the  earth :  I  have  finished  the  work 
which  thou  gavest  me  to  do.  .  .  And  now  come 
I  to  thee."  "  The  time  of  my  departure  is  at 
hand.  I  have  fought  a  good  fight;  I  have 
finished  my  course;  I  have  kept  the  faith: 
henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of 


THE  LIGHT.  141 

righteousness,  which  the  Lord,  the  righteous 
Judge,  shall  give  me  at  that  day ;  and  not  to 
me  only,  but  unto  all  them  that  love  his  appear- 
ing." We  can  little  wonder,  then,  at  the  defiant 
words  of  the  German  reformer  when  he  laughed 
his  enemies  to  scorn  :  "  They  threaten  us  with 
death.  If  they  were  wise  as  they  are  unwise, 
they  would  threaten  us  with  life."  And  we 
can  but  believe  there  are  many  quiet,  unassum- 
ing persons  who  are  in  heart  ready  to  rejoice 
in  view  of  death,  to  take  up  triumphant  words 
like  those  of  Hugh  M'Krail,  the  young  Scotch 
Covenanter,  who,  in  the  close  of  his  address 
to  the  people  when  he  was  brought  to  martyr- 
dom, hailed  his  future  home  :  —  "  And  now  I 
leave  off  to  speak  any  more  to  creatures,  and 
turn  my  speech  to  thee,  O  Lord.  And  now 
I  begin  my  intercourse  with  God,  which  shall 
never  be  broken  off.  Farewell,  father  and 
mother,  friends  and  relations;  farewell,  the 
world  and  all  delights;  farewell,  meat  and 
drink;  farewell,  sun,  moon,  and  stars.  Wel- 
come, God  and  Father ;  welcome,  sweet  Jesus, 
the  Mediator  of  the  New  Covenant ;  welcome, 


142  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

blessed  Spirit  of  grace,  and  God  of  all  consola- 
tion ;  welcome,  glory ;  welcome,  eternal  life ; 
welcome,  death.  O  Lord,  into  thy  hands  t 
commit  my  spirit ;  for  thou  hast  redeemed  my 
soul,  Lord  God  of  truth." 


"  The  tongues  of  dying  men 
Enforce  attention,  like  deep  harmony." 

We  are  accustomed,  I  think,  to  lay  no  small 
stress .  upon  the  last  words  of  those  whose 
voices  will  be  heard  upon  the  earth  no  more 
forever.  Yet  the  Bible  places  no  peculiar  em- 
phasis upon  a  triumphant  death-bed,  or  the  lack 
of  it.  An  unrighteous  prophet  desired  to  die 
the  death  of  the  righteous ;  but  the  ancient 
record  gives  few  particulars  relating  to  such  a 
death.  Indeed,  the  stoning  of  Stephen  is 
almost  the  only  instance  in  which  we  are  per- 
mitted to  be  present  to  overhear  the  last  words 
of  any  Bible  saint.  This  silence  is  remarkable, 
else  we  are  at  fault  in  caring  so  much  for  the 
"  tongues  of  dying  men."  It  was  the  life  of 
Paul,  not  his  death,  which  was  of  value  to  the 


THE  LIGHT.  143 

world.  The  death-bed  testimony  impresses  us 
only  as  it  is  the  outgrowth  of  a  life.  The  life 
is  the  test.  Triumphant  living  is  better  than 
triumphant  dying.  Those  who  have  already 
overcome  sin  and  the  fear  of  death  count  it  no 
great  victory  if  they  conquer  death  itself. 
Those  who  have  fought  a  good  fight  are  ready 
jo  be  offered. 

To  die  is  to  be  taken  only  as  a  part  of  the 
straightforward  work  of  life.  It  is  a  part  of 
our  business  to  die.  And  what  matters  it  ? 
If  we  live,  God  dwells  with  us  ;  and,  if  we  die, 
We  dwell  with  God.1  We  find  upon  a  tomb  in 
Pompeii,  cut  in  marble,  a  ship  brought  to  an- 
chor, and  the  seamen  furling  the  sails  :  Death 
brings  the  soul  to  harbor.  "  Heaven  is  as  near 
by  sea  as  it  is  by  land,"  said  Sir  Humphrey 
Gilbert,  as  he  sat,  book  in  hand,  upon  the  deck 
of  his  little  craft,  with  mountain  waves  rising 
around  him;  and,  when  the  wild  midnight  came, 
he  took  the  watery  way  to  heaven.  "  Heaven 
heaves  in  sight,"  said  another  man  of  the  sea. 

1  These  were,  in  substance,  the  words  of  a  Scotch  pastor 
near  the  close  of  life. 


144  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

The  next  day  he  said,  "  I  am  almost  in ;  "  and, 
the  next  day,  —  "Let  go  the  anchor."  He 
quietly  sailed  into  heaven  just  as  he  had  many 
times  into  port.  By  compass,  by  common 
sense,  crowding  on  all  sail ;  by  long  tacks,  com- 
pelling even  contrary  winds  to  aid  him ;  by  a 
good  fight  with  wind  and  wave,  —  he  found  a 
quiet  haven.  "  When  Death  calls  the  roll,  be 
always  ready  to  answer,  '  Here,'  "  was  the  old 
trapper's  motto  in  Cooper's  story.  When  an 
American  general  was  told  that  he  could  live 
only  a  few  hours,  he  answered,  "  Let  the  drum 
beat.  .  .  .  My  knapsack  is  strung :  I  am  ready 
to  go."  The  commentator  Bengel  was  sturdily 
opposed  to  all  parade,  —  the  making  of  a  scene 
in  the  dying-hour.  He  stood  to  the  business 
of  correcting  proof-sheets  as  usual  the  day 
when  Death  called  upon  him.  Shall  we  not  do 
well  if  we  can  die  in  the  earnest  work  of  the 
daily  life,  like  a  man  in  battle,  falling  in  hot 
blood,  and  thinking  nothing  about  the  last 
breath,  or  the  posture  of  dying?  In  some 
battle  we  shall  perish,  no  matter  when  or 
where.  Our  only  care  is  to  fight  the  good 
fight. 


THE  LIGHT.  145 

"  What  boots  it  where  the  high  reward  is  given, 
Or  whence  the  soul  triumphant  springs  to  heaven  ?  " 

Upon  removing  the  ashes  of  Vesuvius  from  a 
buried  city,  there  was  found  a  Roman  senti- 
nel in  armor,  standing  for  eighteen  hundred 
years  in  the  place  where  his  captain  had  placed 
him  upon  the  fatal  morning,  —  standing  to  his 
charge  amid  the  terror  and  ruin  of  the  perish- 
ing city.  To  do  present  duty,  to  die  doing  it, 
is  more  important  than  to  behold  unutterable 
glory  in  the  dying  moment. 

The  strength  and  ripeness  of  character 
which  make  the  earth  mourn  when  good  men 
are  taken  away  is  in  itself  the  best  preparation 
for  the  hour  of  departure.  Precious  in  the 
sight  of  the  Lord  is  the  death  of  his  saints. 
The  life  of  his  saints  is  precious  to  the  Lord, 
but  their  death  likewise.  God's  plans  are  not 
disturbed  by  the  work  of  the  Death  Angel. 
The  divine  kingdom  is  still  carried  forward. 
"  The  withdrawal  of  any  man  from  His  harvest- 
field,"  said  the  missionary  Judson,  "  however 
learned  and  wise  and  good,  however  well  pre- 
pared, even  by  a  life-long  discipline,  for  that 
10 


146  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

particular  field,  is  no  loss  to  Him.  As  though 
the  omnipotent  God  had  so  few  weapons  in  his 
armory,  that  we  must  tremble  and  faint  at  the 
loss  of  one."  Is  it  possible  that  our  own  self- 
conceit  makes  us  dread  being  cut  off  from  our 
life  work  ?  Does  not  God  know  where  we  may 
be  most  useful?  Men  are  removed  when  their 
powers  are  ripe.  The  merchant  has  just  learned 
skill ;  the  physician,  by  hard  years  of  toil,  has 
become  wise ;  the  earnest  Christian  has  just 
found  out  how  he  can  best  serve  the  souls  of 
men  :  has  God  no  use  for  such  instruments  in  a 
higher  state  of  being  ?  This  vigor  of  life  and 
usefulness  is  the  very  preparation  we  need  for 
the  last  hour.  "  It  is  nothing  to  die,"  said  the 
aged  Storrs  of  Braintree,  u  for  one  whose  heart 
is  all  absorbed  in  Christ's  service."  When  men 
are  fully  taken  up  with  trying  to  do  the  Mas- 
ter's will  in  this  world,  we. think  of  it  as  a  very 
slight  transition,  if  they  are  called  upon  to  do 
God's  will  in  another  life.  The  one  work  pre- 
pares for  the  other.  Concerning  this  and  that 
venerable  Christian  disciple,  we  may  say,  — 


THE  LIGHT.  147 

c<  How  well  he  fell  asleep! 
Like  some  proud  river,  widening  towards  the  sea  : 
Calmly  and  grandly,  silently  and  deep, 
Life  joined  eternity." 

If  we  make  it  the  leading  question  in  life, 
How  shall  we  live  ?  we  need  not  trouble  our- 
selves with  asking,  How  shall  we  die  ?  We 
begin  to  climb  the  true  Jacob's  ladder,  round 
upon  round,  in  each  day's  duties ;  so  ascending 
from  earth  to  heaven.  The  quaint  device  of 
Goldsmith,  in  his  "Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  may 
be  suitably  set  before  every  man  and  every 
woman ;  whereby,  he  would  have  the  good  wife 
train  herself  daily  in  the  virtues  she  was  most 
deficient  in,  that  she  might  live  up  to  the  epi- 
taph her  husband  had  prepared  for  her  and 
placed  before  her  eyes  as  a  pattern.  Live  as 
you  would  die.  A  life  in  this  world  which  ill 
accords  with  the  realities  of  the  future  state  is 
as  inappropriate  as  the  recording  of  jests  upon 
a  tombstone.  "  May  we  so  live,"  was  the 
Puritan  prayer,  "  that  to  us  a  sudden  death 
may  be  the  most  happy ! "  I  think  that  I 
should  reverse  the  directions  of  an  old  book, 


148  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

in  which  it  is  written  that  we  ought  to  think 
much  about  dying.  "  Art  thou  going  to  any 
meeting,  or  entering  into  any  company,  or 
marching  to  the  holy  assemblies?  Discourse 
with  thyself  in  this  manner :  It  may  be  that  I 
shall  never  go  into  any  other  company  until 
I  come  to  the  church  and  congregation  of  the 
first-born,  whose  names  are  written  in  heaven." 
"  Imagine  that  it  may  be  this  is  the  last  time 
that  thou  shalt  sit  at  the  table  ;  that  next  thou 
mayst  sit  with  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  with 
all  the  blessed  martyrs ;  .  .  .  and  that  it  may 
be  thou  shalt  never  taste  any  more,  but  of  the 
food  of  the  angels,  and  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree 
of  life ;  and  that  thou  shalt  never  drink,  but  of 
the  new  wine  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  of 
the  rivers  of  eternal  pleasures  that  run  from  the 
throne  of  God."  I  would  rather  bid  men 
think  much  about  living,  —  living  to  the  pur- 
pose, fulfilling  life's  noblest  end.  Art  thou 
going  to  any  meeting  ?  Consider  how  thou 
mayst  bring  men  from  this  company  to  taste 
of  angels'  food,  and  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  life. 
Think  how  best  you  can  bring  those  who  sit  at 


THE  LIGHT.  149 

table  with  you,  to  sit  down  with  holy  patri- 
archs and  martyrs  in  their  reward ;  and  forget 
not  to 'bring  to  your  table  the  hungry  and  poor 
of  the  earth.  Then  you  need  not  care,  whether, 
at  next  meal,  you  sit  in  this  part  of  your 
Father's  house,  or  hear  the  call  to  go  up  higher. 
It  is  this  noble  life  which  is  its  own  best 
monument.  "  Lay  me  quietly  in  the  earth," 
said  John  Howard :  "  place  a  sun-dial  over  my 
grave,  and  let  me  be  forgotten."  But  men  will 
never  forget  him.  His  life  is  always  shining, 
like  the  sun,  which  hastens  not  to  go  down. 
He  needs  no  sun-dial  over  his  grave.  We  are 
glad  that  the  grave  of  the  Genevan  Reformer 
is  unknown.  And  we  ourselves  indorse  the 
judgment,  that  "  it  is  right  that  Luther's  grave 
should  be  left  without  any  inscription.  All 
words  would  have  been  tame ;  just  as  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  find  a  fitting  inscrip- 
tion for  the  tombs  of  the  apostles."  Concern- 
ing the  men  whose  fame  is  the  possession  of 
all  mankind,  we  use  the  words  of  Pericles, 
"  The  whole  earth  is  the  sepulchre  of  illus- 
trious men."     And,  even  concerning  the  most 


150  THE  SILENT  HOUSE. 

obscure  men,  we  feel  that  their  tombstones  are 
matters  of  indifference,  if  their  lives  were 
noble.  How  many  have  lived  on  the  earth, 
and  died,  leaving  little  more  trace  than  a  leaf 
which  nourished  one  summer,  and  decayed  a 
thousand  years  ago.  Yet  many  of  these  name- 
less men  have  died  with  unspeakable'  dignity, 
having  characters  ripened  and  beautified  with 
tints  which  will  never  fade ;  whose  influence 
on  the  earth,  though  apparently  little  as  that 
of  one  leaf,  is  abiding  as  the  life  of  the  human 
race,  which  endures  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, built  up  by  individual  lives ;  as  massive 
trees,  which  grow  during  thousands  of  years, 
are  built  up  by  single  leaves.  Is  it  written, 
"  Blessed  are  the  dead  that  die  in  the  Lord  "  ? 
"  Blessed  are  the  valiant  that  have  lived  in  the 
Lord,"  adds  Thomas  Carlyle.  Henceforth  they 
rest  from  their  labors,  and  their  works  do 
follow  them.  "  Give  her  of  the  fruit  of  her 
hands,  and  let  herown  works  praise  her  in  the 
gates,"  is  the  epitaph  upon  Mary  Lyon's  tomb- 
stone. Whether  we  are  conscious  of  it,  or  not, 
our  works,  whatever  they  may  be,  will  follow 


THE  LIGHT.  151 

us.  Happy  are  they  whose  works  shall  praise 
them  in  the  gates.  The  word  "Health"  was 
written  npon  an  ancient  tombstone.  Health, 
wholeness,  holiness,  are  one  in  root.  The  holi- 
ness of  saints  is  not  perfected,  not  whole,  till 
death  completes  life.  When  -this  life  is  rounded 
out  by  death,  and  the  career  of  heaven  is  open 
to  the  soul,  we  shall  do  well  if  we  write  the 
word  "Health"  upon  the  tombstone.  Con- 
cerning one  who  has  lived  wholly  for  God,  and 
who  has  departed  this  life  that  he  may  con- 
tinue the  service,  we  cannot  say  that  he  has 
died:  he  lives  forevermore.  Our  Christian 
faith  writes  the  word  "  Life  "  in  the  place  of 
"  Death." 


It***        • 


TOPICAL  INDEX. 


STATING  SUCH  SUBDIVISIONS  OF  THE  GENERAL  SUBJECT 
AS  ABE  TREATED  WITH  SOME  FULNESS. 


PAGE. 

Bands  in  the  death  of  the  wicked  ....        65-90 
Brevity  of  life,  Scripture  symbols  of  .        .        .  44-54 

Burial-places 117-124 

Death,  by  sin 9-12 

dance  of 81 

awakening  a  sense  of  sin  .        .        .        .      72,  76-80 
constitutional  fear  of    .        .        .        .     113-116,  125 

impartial 18-23 

indifference  to  the  presence  of     .        .    72-75,  80,  81 
inevitable  .......  24-29 

loneliness  of 87-90 

pictorial  literature  of       s  33-35 

preparation  for     .        .        .      36-41,  62-64,  111,  112 
of  sinners  a  relief  to  the  world        .        .  67-72 

sudden 29-36 

triumph  over 127-142 

of  unbelievers 79 

universal 12-18 

Diseases  the  instruments  of  death  .        .        .        .        55-62 

153 


154 


Topical  Index* 


Dying  thief,  the    .        .        .        . '      .        , 
Emptiness  of  earthly  riches     .        .        . 
power         .        . 
pleasure 
Faithful  dealing  with  the  dying  . 
Repentance  on  the  death-bed  . 

thought  to  be  offensive  to  God 
true,  unlikely  in  sudden  death 
in  acute  diseases 
in  long  sickness 
in  the  feebleness  of  clos 
ing  life     .  >     . 
apparent,  not  likely  to  be  genuine 

This  year  thou  shalt  die 

Triumphant  living  better  than  triumphant  dying 


PAGE. 

91,  92,  94 

82-84 

84-86 

87' 

95,96 

91-112 

93,94 

96-99 

99-102 

102,  103 

104-107 

107-111 

42,43 

142-151 


INDEX  B. 

AUTHORS  WHOSE  NAMES  ARE  NOT  MADE  CLEAR 
IN  THE  TEXT. 


JEschyltts,  Of  all  the  gods     .... 
Boston,  Thomas,  Dust  walking  in  dust    . 
Browning,  Mrs.  E.  B.,  referred  to 

High  heart,  etc 

The  plague  runs 

Bryant,  All  that  tread       .... 
Baxter,  Richard,  pastor  in  England  . 
Cervantes,  Death  is  deaf  .... 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  Is  that  a  death-hed? 
Cuyler,  T.  L.,  In  that  scene  of  pitiable,  etc. 
Drelincotjrt,  Charles,  the  editions  of 

Death  stops  its  ears    .... 
no  respect  for  crowns  or  chains 

He  that  travels  in  a  strange  country 

Directions  of  an  old  book,  "Art  thou"  and 

"Imagine" 

Epictetus,  Why  crowd  the  world 
Hale,  Robert,  The  wheels  of  Nature 
Herbert,  George,  Nothing  between  two  dishes 

155 


PAGE. 
30 

12 
9 

20 

55 

13 

77 

30 

131 

104,  105 

3 

20 

21 

.    132 


17 
10 

87 


156 


Index  B. 


Holmes,  O.  W.,  By  the  stillness 

Homer,  The  wind  in  autumn .... 

Jacques,  Jacques,  canon  of  Auburn,  — 

Death  conversing  with  victims 
Longfellow,  H.  W.,  Spanish  song,  Our  lives 
Murray,  Here  in  this  chamber      .        .        . 
Oleviams,  quaint  German  divine 
Saurin,  pastor  in  France        .... 
Shakspeare,  old  play,  Richard  II.     . 

Justice  Shallow      ..... 

Seven  ages  

Words  of  Warwick        .... 

Of  comfort  no  man  speak  . 

Tongues  of  dying  men  .... 
Smith,  Henry,  1550-1600,  the  Puritan  pastor 
South,  Robert,  After .  . .  hours  .  .  .  night  . 
Taylor,  Jeremy,  Nero,  Judas,  Herod     . 
Theodosius,  epitaph,  " Health"  (Gibbon)   . 
Thompson,  A.  C,  Fifth  chapter  of  Genesis 
Virgil,  These  fierce  passions 
Wallace,  A.  R.,  Changing  names  in  Borneo 
Whittier,  "  I  am,"  from  Questions  of  Life  . 
Young,  Night  Thoughts,  All  men  think    . 

Wise  to-day 

The  knell,  the  shroud 


PAGE. 

56 
47 

30 
23 

134 

134 
77 

-  21 
3S 
49 
85 

117 

142 
52 
24 
78 

151 
16 
70 
25 
48 
39 
41 

117 


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